MDF Painted or Wood Painted Door
Christine Clemens
15 years ago
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Christine Clemens
15 years agoyolande_1951
15 years agoRelated Discussions
MDF center panel vs. all wood for painted white cabinets?
Comments (3)You WILL see minute cracks where the rails and stiles meet on an all wood door, as well as where the panel is inserted into those stiles and rails. That's just how wood behaves in the presence of moisture--including your wood floors. They too will gap in the winter and potentially cup in the summer. It can be controlled a bit more if you use AC in the summer and use a humidifier in the winter, but nothing on the planet will stop it. Choosing wood stiles and rails with MDF panel will stop most of the cracking at the joint where the panel meets the stiles and rails, but it won't stop the cracking where the stiles meet the rails. If the natural expansion and contraction of wood will drive you crazy then don't get wood. Get an all MDF door that is routed to resemble a recessed panel door or raised panel door or whatever you are looking at. And then choose thermofoil if you want a "perfect" paint job too. Because even sprayed MDF will still not be 100% perfect. It's about as good as you get for smooth paint, but thermofoil is smoother and more even still....See MoreWhat material for painted cabinets, wood, hdf, mdf??
Comments (4)The entire cabinet is rarely made of solid wood. Solid wood expands and contracts with the moisture in the air and tends to pull apart at the joins over time. Cabinet doors are often solid wood, although a solid wood frame with an mdf raised panel in the middle is also common. The raised panel in the middle isn't glued or nailed to the frame, it floats free in the frame so expansion and contraction in this large piece doesn't pull anything apart. Boxes are generally either plywood or a high grade of mdf, also called "furniture board." I suspect that "hdf" is also "furniture board." You will get many arguments on whether plywood is superior to high grade mdf or is no better; that is a different question and not one I consider overly important. If you are choosing a face frame cabinet style, the frame is usually solid wood and the panels can be either solid wood or plywood/mdf. Frameless cabinets ("Euro-style") are usually plywood or mdf. For painting, an mdf door provides you with a surface without any graining, so the paint goes on smoothly. Different woods give different looks: oak shows a lot of grain under the paint and maple shows hardly any. It's a look, that's all. Paint on wood doesn't generally crack, so I don't know what that's about. I have to warn you that I wasn't familiar with the term "hdf," so I looked it up. Most sites that refer to it are from alibaba.com, which is a Chinese super-site that sells one of everything made in the world, or other companies featuring Chinese products. Not necessarily a high recommendation. Last Feb. the question of cabinet materials came up in the thread below. At the time I looked up exactly how the different materials are made. You might take a look. Here is a link that might be useful: Cabinet materials...See MorePainted White Cabinets: Wood Quality-MDF or Maple?
Comments (20)thank you guys..actually i realized that the granite we liked is not Bianco Antico but a very similar granite called Delicatus. I love it! But no matter how many searches I do online, I dont see it paired with antique brown cabinets. I have seen it with almost every other stained cabinet there is but not the stain we are choosing. DH does not want to go darker or lighter on the cabinet stain and thinks Delicatus will go just fine. Our designer is trying to push a more golden granite on us and thinks that I should stick to all warm tones...although she is the expert I somehow feel that Delicatus just might work. It has so many colors in it that I think it will compliment the brown cabinets pretty nicely. But then is the question of the flooring..Dark brown cabinets, Delicatus granite, and nutmeg stained oak floors scraped lightly. Do you think there are too many different colors going on there?...See MoreWhite slab doors...Painted? Laminate? MDF?
Comments (1)Oh my gosh, I LOVE that second one!! I think the laminate looks great in that style, like Poggen - Pohl, which seems VERY expensive. Nancy...See Moremontalvo
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Christine ClemensOriginal Author