Does the grain run the same direction on both?

Is it interesting or bad? If it's not due to the direction of grain and it bugs you, you should probably try to get replacements that match.

It appears that the grain runs horizontal on the drawers and vertical on the doors. Would this make the doors noticably darker than the drawers ? And is is normal ? Is this something a cabinet maker would likely replace ?

Tim

I think it probably has to do with the grain running in different directions like fori said...and also couple that with a light maple wood. Since Cider is a lighter finish the difference will show up more. I doubt replacements will really help that much with Kemper. They are a mass produced cabinet company and probably won't do any custom staining for you.

If they matched in the day, would they be too dark at night?

Natural and lighter maples have this problem....even with solid wood doorstyles!

Yes, that can make a difference in the color because of the way light hits it. It's just sort of a pretty feature of wood.

You might be able to get replacement doors or drawers with the grain running the same way on everything if it's a custom company, or if they happen to carry doors with the grain running that way, but I would expect to be charged for them. It's really not a flaw.

Hello All;
I posted a link to a photo of my kitchen cabinets so you can see the color variation.

I want to thank everyone for your helpful response. I will ask my cabinet salesperson to stop over and take a look to see if there is any way my situations can be improved.

Tim

Here is a link that might be useful:

It's easy to tell if it's the stain, just take out a drawer and put it sideways next to the door.

I have stained a lot of wood, and never had it look that consistanly different. With face framed cabients, you've got alot of horizontal and veritcal grain, and the only time I'd have differences show up is if I stained them in different batches and was not extra careful to make sure to do it the same way (like getting in a hurry and wiping the stain off too soon).

I've seen some dramatic difference if different finishes where used, some are way more amber than others.

BTW -are these solid or veneer? I expected to see seams if solid, and then you could have some variantion within a door/drawer and not just between them.

I ask becuase I've seen some rather dramitic difference in veneer stained exactly the same.

That seems pretty drastic but it could be the photograph. Maple and Cherry both never really photograph that realistic. However, if the photos are pretty true to life, this would warrant a trip by the rep. Good luck! Kompy

In my opinion that is NOT the same stain. In fact, the drawers look almost natural. It doesn't seem to look that bad, but I'd need to see a pic of the entire kitchen. But, the cabinets and doors definitely look stained and the drawers do not.

Check the inside of the door - from the pic it almost seems like the top edge of the door matches the drawer. If so, that means that only the outside of the door and the cabinet carcass were stained.