I have BM White Dove, but I was not involved in the painting process. My cabinets are Dura Supreme.

got my new custom cabs painted on site during construction. they used benjamin moore advance brand paint. so far so good.

I think BM simply white is nice. Also members from the gardenweb suggest painting on the final coat for touchups.

I associate with lacquer with a high end, high gloss paint job, so I am surprised he would do that unless you all had talked about that.

I think generally you want new cabinets sprayed offsite in a clean room (as opposed to finished onsite where it can be hard to get everything prepped and cleaned correctly.) But hopefully some of the more knowledgeable folks on there will chime in.

We have maple cabs too and went with SW Dover White, mainly because all of the trim in the house is painted that color and so I knew it would be right. Our cabs were sprayed but don't look shiny, they look the same as our trim with a smooth finish.

Our recently installed kitchen cabinets are hand-painted F & B Estate Eggshell in Wimborne White, a beautiful, slightly creamy white. Great color! Here and there you can faintly see the brushstrokes.

We've only had the cabinets installed in a working kitchen for about a month. The finish seems pretty "scrubbable," but does not not wipe off as easily as the slick and plasticky IKEA white thermofoil cabinets they replaced. All of which is to say, the F & B painted finish is not high maintenance, but not no-maintenance either.

I'm imagining that a cabinets that are sprayed and then given some kind of protective top coat would be easier to clean. But my paint treatment has the advantage that the cabinets can be repainted very easily without extensive priming and sanding. So there are pros and cons either way.

We debated the same thing when choosing our cab color and finish. Our cab maker's painter suggested the brushed finish for easier future touch-ups. DH and I both thought her sample of the brushed finish looked like a 10 year old did it. Lots of visible brush strokes. We asked for a sample of a sprayed door and liked that much better. It does look a little glossy and perfect, but much preferrable to our brushed option.

Here's a pic of our BM Simply White cabs sprayed in Satin Impervo Waterbourne. This is the inside of the door I took to show someone else.

My cabinets are a lacquer on maple. I love the finish, it looks very professional in my opinion. It is not glossy per se, but I do have a glaze which may change that.

Although, I have white lacquer cabinets in my bathroom without the glaze and those are not particularlly glossy either. The butler's pantry which is a dark stain lacquer color does look glossy, however.

We have Satin Impervo oil in a creamy white. I had a melted sample of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream color matched. It was hand brushed at the house by my painter. You can see the brush strokes if you get the light just right. He is a very very good painter. Since we have an 1890 home I wanted the brushed on paint and the look of it. Ours were done 6 yrs ago and they are still almost perfect...a few places that I need to touch up from dings but that is all. c

Our custom cabs are painted in BM Gardenia.
Here's a shot

I'm painting our cabinets. Can't afford to have them sprayed or lacquered. But, I could afford to buy the fine paints of europe paints. Wow! What a difference! The paint is beautiful. I've painted semigloss with BM, Pratt & Lambert, Sherwin williams, etc. Nothing compares to it. The paint flattens and strokes disappear. If you are going to paint your cabinets, I highly recommend it. I still have to put a second coat, but the paint feels different. It felt better than the BM oil based I used at our old house. It goes on like a dream. If you're having someone hand paint them ('cause you want more of a timely feel), get the FPE paint. It's totally worth it. I think 1.5 liters or something is like 100. The liter is 50. They match in other colors. I used chelsea gray (BM). I'm painting our wood trim and now, I can't go back to BM or Pratt paints. I was sold on the pratt paints on value. But, seriously, this stuff is awesome. And, it goes a lot further also.

You might try seed pearl in Pratt and lambert. It's pretty. FPE also sent me a sample close to FB's pointing. They can match (well...no one can really match it) the color of pointing. Another great color is ivory white by bm. All of those colors are warm whites.

Good luck!

Ours were lacquered, sprayed with a Super White color. They're holding up great after two years.

Dear kimiko -- Thanks for sharing your experience with the FPE paints. I've always wanted to try it and now you've pushed me over the edge! I second "Seed Pearl" in Pratt and Lambert. It is such a beautiful color.