Have you considered gel staining them or painting them. The gel stain is a darker finish but many have gotten great results. Many have painted the oak white so you can get help in that direction.

Painting is something I'm considering, however the work involved in filling the grain is a lot, and there's miles of this stuff. I don't really care for the look of painted grain either, so I would be filling it.

I wonder if there is any hope of having painted kitchen cabinets while the remainder stays as is and actually having it look good together?

What do you think of this 'reglazed' oak? Tempting to go in that direction, however she says the project is big and taking on a large amount might be too much.

Here is a link that might be useful: Reglazed Oak Cabinets

hi athome..

Maybe I'm strange but I never felt the need to have all the woods in my home match. I have a variety and the rooms are open to each other. I actually don't like it when every piece of wood is the same type. I would not choose oak for my new kitchen if I didn't like it.

The reglazing looks good though..but it is a big project, as she stated.

Also wondering if it is an option to move your kitchen to another room, or is that simply not possible? I toyed with that idea, but ended up expanding the house instead.

Good Luck!

KA:)

I was worried about the "sea of oak" we would achieve by putting oak into our new kitchen, but it was the most cost-effective way to stay within our budget and yet expand the workspace. So...we put glass into some of our uppers including the upper over the range (the duct entering from the vent below has an oak plywood modesty panel to camouflage it). This was a good decision. Also I demanded that the front side of our peninsula be MDF so that I could paint it. Another good decision. We did not put in a fancy blacksplash--no competition with the grain of the oak.

Not necessarily the height of fashion, but it worked for us.

BTW, your cab doors are much more classic than the ones with routed-out cathedral arch patterns. Try thinking of them as a timeless feature, not a flaw.

Thanks for the ideas, K.A. Moving to another room would definitely be too huge an undertaking for this house. If I could kick out the walls two feet that would help, but again, too much expense for this time and place.

Florantha, I am thinking along the same lines, adding in some painted feature, perhaps the large island that will sit in the center, adding some glass to tops. I think I'm going to attempt the reglazing technique with one sacrificial cabinet to see how it turns out and how much work it actually is. I love how the color came out, seeming to tame the oak down however with it still looking like natural wood.

I would still have the hemlock windows and doors, and I think that they would blend in with the darker color of the reglazed oak. I am not even going to consider trying to do all of the windows and doors, it would be easier to rebuild the entire house! (:

YES, I am grateful that the cabinets are not the cathedral type. The real fault they have IMO is the huge gap between the doors.

I crave a new look, would have loved the opportunity to have a lot of motion in the granite, but do not want to get so crazy that nothing works together.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Here is some refinishing info to give you another option. Flat sawn red oak has open grain pores which can lead to a two dimensional look if not sealed before staining. Your doors are not showing that as much. Coffee or ebony staining blends the grain into the dark color. Using rift or quartersawn instead of flat cut wood eliminates much of that except for edges.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mission Oak finishing procedure

Quartersawn white oak is beautiful!

I feel the same way about oak that you do, and thus would paint them rather than stain them. The glazing you linked to looks OK, but to me it still looks like oak. We had oak in a rental house a long time ago, and the landlord gave me permission to gel stain it. It was a prettier color but it still looked like oak.

We had oak at our last house and we had it painted (lacquered actually). We ended up changing the doors (and other things, as the project took on a life of its own). Someone told us that we had to get oak doors because the cabinets were oak, and the paint job would look different on the doors if we got doors of a smooth wood. So, we spent the extra money and bought all oak doors. It turned out, though, that the finish on the existing oak went on very smooth -- because the grain had already been "toned down" with the polyurethane finish. Because we had gone and gotten oak doors, the painter had to put some extra coats on to cover the grain ON THE DOORS! I could have screamed!! My point is that it might not take so much to cover the oak grain if you just rough it up with some sandpaper, rather than sand down to the bare wood.

I agree that your doors are beautifully classics. Maybe a little too far apart, but that is nothing as long as the doors are nice, which they are.

Could you consider starting with painting the kitchen white, and then move on to the other rooms as time and money permit?

I feel your pain. Although I don't have a solution, I wanted to relate what happened to us when we recently moved to a small town in Ohio only five years ago. EVERY house our realtor showed us had the honey oak kitchen cabinets -- with the ubiquitous arch! Didn't seem to matter what age or even price point (even in the newer high-end homes) -- they all had them. As if this wasn't bad enough, in the real estate home descriptions, they would say things like: "3 bdrms, fireplace, oak cabinets . . . " I tried to explain to my realtor that "oak cabinets" was NOT a wonderful special feature that should be advertised anymore -- at least, not since the 90's!

If you are on Facebook a company that I have used Creative Cabinets and Faux Finishes, LLC has some nice pictures of their work filling the oak grain with bondo and then painting them. It's pretty amazing what they can do with adding trim and repainting older cabinets for a fresh new look. If you are on FB you could give them a look or maybe they have a website outside of that, too.

What about getting new doors that are a bit larger to cover the center support in a color you love and then you will just have to paint or stain the shell's? If a total re-do of the kitchen is an option GO for it! You can slowly change out other rooms as you go whether it's painting, changing door faces, staining.

I was thinking along cjc123's lines. I have picked up some solid wood, oak cabinets. I'm bored with oak, too (no, my woods don't match) and plan new doors.

My plan (plan = future) is to buy a particular maple door from the Door Stop online. Barker Doors, though, has measuring instructions for hinges are FANTASTIC and even my tiny mind could wrap around the hows of it. I plan to get a different set of doors for another area from them.

Anyway, If you only had to fill the oak on the face frames, you could get any door you wanted. I'm going with 1.25" overlay, because that leaves only 1/4" reveal around each door. These are truly "full overlay" and the face frames aren't evident.

Oh - and the divider between the doors? You buy "butt doors".

Christine

Thank you all so much for lots of information and links to check out! (:

dan, beautiful example of quarter sawn oak!

bigdoglover, how are your painted cabinets holding up to your "big dogs"? We've got boxers so everything here has to hold up to being washed including the cabinetry. If we do paint, I've found a grain filler that is fairly simple to use, and easy to sand. I may experiment on a door soon.

cjc, we are doing a total new layout, taking down a wall, and were trying to re-use many of the cabinets since there are miles of them. Many of them have barely been touched in 20 years. They "look" like new, I'm simply tired of the grain and really don't like the big gap. I'm wondering if that gap can be sawn out totally.

Christine, Barker Doors & Barker RTA (Made in the USA) is only a 3 hour drive from us. We have been planning to head down to look at the cabinets and doors as they do have a showroom. Perhaps they could walk us through how to rebuild, or re-face what we'd like to re-use. I have to ask, "butt doors"....do they meet? Does that mean that I could do away with the huge center stile?

We have reached out to three cabinet companies to see if they have any recommendations for what could "live" with what we have. I am inclined through to begin to get rid of all of it a little at a time either through paint, stain. I don't think we would ever completely replace ALL of the cabinets in this house there are soooo many.

legallin, Thanks for the head's up. I'll make a note of NOT retiring to Ohio. LOL!

gr8day, I am heading over to look Creative shortly, thanks for the tip! I'm not on Facebook, but I found their site and added link below

Here is a link that might be useful: Creative Cabinets and Faux Finishes

I don't see any problem with painted cabinets in a house full of stained woods.

Also, I don't think the grain has to be filled to look nice. Others here have painted their oak cabinets and the grain adds a nice texture without being at all obnoxious. One of the most beautiful was Girlwithaspirin's, which is in the Finished Kitchens Blog...Unfortunately the link no longer leads to the better pics in which you can see how the grain works. I wish I could remember who did something similar with cream or white.

Here is a link that might be useful: Girlwithaspirin's kitchen on the FKB (you have to scroll down)

I ordered shaker style doors for another cabinet area I'm building. They're so inexpensive, I couldn't NOT buy from them. I've purchased drawer boxes from them before and couldn't be more pleased.

Their door style selection, though, I found to be limited. Granted, I guess they do fewer things well, rather than a bunch of half-assed stuff. :) Their videos and instructions are very clear.

As I mentioned, I also plan to buy from the Door Stop. Their selection is great and prices not so bad.

Butt doors do meet in the middle, but I hesitate to say yes, chop that center thing out. Depending upon the width of the cabinet, it might be an important support. Imagine wide shelves, for example. There's usually a support on the inside of that thing. (What ARE the vertical things called? Rails or stiles?)

My plan is to just get the butt doors and leave the middle thing. At 30" wide, it still leaves me some wide access. If it were a 24? Chop that puppy out.

What's the name of your grain filler? I am going to go at the face frames of these other cabinets with something like that, and probably purchase maple or some other smoother wood for the doors.

Cool!
OH - and I also have mixed woods. Painted oak kitchen and painted maple credenza on another wall. I have chocolate hard wood floors (I can't remember what they're made of), and a teak dining table. The oak cabinets whose doors I want to buy from Door Stop I might even stain after really treating the face frames. Haven't decided.

In my bedroom, where I've built the 16' 10" Tansu, with doors from Barker, I'll paint the maple. The en suite has espresso maple vanities, but from DirectBuy's ordering errors, I have 3 unfinished cabs in the window area, visible from the MBR. I'll probably paint those to match the Tansu on the opposite wall.

Matchy-matchy in woods is unimaginative, to me. Like buying a showroom living room with all the furniture upholstered the same. Where's the character! :)

C.

I used a few inexpensive, unfinished oak-front cabinets (from Lowe's) in my almost finished kitchen. Used two coats of primer and two coats of latex kitchen and bath paint, and I can't see the grain. There are heavy brush marks, which probably disguises some of the grain.

Have to say that I love golden oak--for furniture, FP mantels, and floors, but not in a kitchen or bathroom.

Here is a link that might be useful: Don't open if you don't like that HS-shop-project-hand-painted-look. :)

Thank you rhome410 for the link. They look great, although darker than I dare go.

Christine, the vertical things are called stiles, and I wish mine could go, but I see what you're saying about the support.

Most grain fillers I've read about are a total chore to sand, hard as rocks. I don't like sanding! That's why I love TimberMate -- easy to sand.

Last year hubby built a mantle shelf. It had some imperfections which he filled with Timbermate. He followed with stain and poly and it looks great. He even filled the seams and they look great -- no shrinking, cracking or falling out. It took the stain perfectly, I can't tell where the filler is.

I tried it on a spare oak drawer face, as a grain filler. I stirred up a batch to the consistency somewhere between pudding and gravy, like in the video. It was easy to go on. I hurried the dry time with a hair dryer, which the manufacturer says is ok. With a fine grit sanding sponge, I gave it a light going over. The sanding was easy. It now looks and feels smooth. In order to see just how well it performed I'll need paint it, I just can't decide on a color! (: I still plan on using a quality primer and paint with excellent filling properties. I'm anticipating a smooth end product. We bought the TimberMate at Woodcraft, which is a woodworker's store, I see it is also available now at Amazon.

I found a YouTube video online which shows how easy TimberMate is to work with. The guy is doing a guitar body, but shows the idea. He finally starts the grain filling at about the three minute mark. Hope it helps.

Here is a link that might be useful: Example of Grain Filling w/TimberMate

athome,
We don't have the big dog anymore :-( but they held up fine. We moved from that house. Those cabinets were not exactly painted, they were lacquered with nitrocellulose lacquer. It makes a wonderful finish, but sorry to say most painters (around here, anyway) don't know about it, or don't know how to use it.

The oak floors in that house did not hold up so well to bigdog (a 100 pound German Shepherd), mostly to his claws, though probably our fault as we used to play games with him in the house that made him run around and skid, lol! It was wonderful, I still love that dog. Anyway, we had engineered oak floors in that house, and they don't hold up as well as solid oak floors.

Did you see the photo posted on the two wood stains thread? There's a great pic of oak cabs next to painted green cabs.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg121134337532.html?1

Wow, thanks for the link. I had not seen that. The deep green pieces add a lot!