Painted Wood Cabinet Doors/Drawer Fronts - Poplar or Soft Maple

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

Does anyone know if soft maple takes paint as nicely as poplar does? I know the soft maple is more durable, so we are inclined to go with that, but we want to make sure the paint finish will be as nice.

We are buying our drawer fronts/doors from Scherr's and going with a Shaker door in painted wood with a MDF panel. We got a sample door in Poplar and it looks great. But it is somewhat easy to ding. We would prefer to get the durability of the Maple but are hoping the finish will be similar.

We don't really have time to get a new sample in the painted maple, so we are trying to make the decision based on our research.

If you have any experience with painted doors in either of these woods, please share. Thanks!

Featured Answer

PRO

Anglophilia

8 years ago

I know that Shiloh makes all their painted cabinet doors out of maple. I've seen them and they are lovely.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (6)

Lisa
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks Suzanne. I was just coming back here to answer my own question for anyone who might be considering using Scherr's in the future.

We decided to go with the Maple. They say that the painted Maple door should look just like our Poplar sample.

If anyone is considering using Scherr's, I would recommend getting a sample door as soon as possible. The sample door takes a while to be delivered if you want to see it finished, because they are made to order. Ours took almost 4 weeks to be delivered after I ordered it, which is why I am in a bit of a rush now making the decision. It would have been faster if we didn't want it painted, but we wanted to make sure they would do a better job of finishing the door than we would do on our own. (The answer is definitely YES!)

Also, when I requested the quote, I didn't mention what type of wood I wanted, just gave them the door and drawer style #s. I did not find out until this week that soft maple was an option. I didn't really spend much time thinking about the materials and was just waiting to make sure I liked the door. I should have researched it more earlier in the process.
Related Discussions
Durability of Ikea wood doors/drawer fronts?
Q
Comments (13)
Thanks for all the feedback on Ikea! I think the Ikea birch is definitely a bit softer than either the oak options or the AW prospects, which were maple and cherry. So I'm ruling out any of the birch doors including the Adel medium brown which seems to be the most popular one. I'm sure they do fine, but I'm still very nervous about using Ikea for a kitchen, and I don't want anything that I am likely to have second thoughts about. Our galley is effectively a corridor - it gets a lot of traffic and every single guest has to cross the kitchen to get to our living and dining rooms. I don't want to cringe everytime my 2yo rides a car through the room because I'm worried about door dings. I've actually just returned from my local store and picked up a sample of the Tidaholm (light oak) door, which I actually like a lot better than I'd expected to - in my small galley it has the feel of almost whitewash, less yellowish than in photos I'd seen. So now it's the dark Liljestad vs. the light Tidaholm.... I had just talked myself into the Liljestad based on a few of hte really nice kitchens on the finished kitchen blog. I know that lighter wood is probably preferable for a small room though. Hmmm, maybe I'll post a second appeal for advice once I get the layout from the designer who works for the installation company.
...See More
painting soft maple kitchen cabinets
Q
Comments (4)
eggandart, painted cabinets are often made of less expensive woods but that doesn't make them lower quality. Poplar and soft maple are commonly used because they're cheap and serviceable. Of the two, the soft maple is a little harder and thus less dent-prone. Aspen or alder would work. Hard maple or cherry would make very nice painted cabinets, but most people would think you were nuts if you painted cherry. You could even use an open-grained wood like oak; the texture of the pores would show through the paint and create a very distinct look that only appeals to certain tastes, but there wouldn't be anything wrong with doing is so long as YOU like the result. If you meant to ask, like the OP, which wood would be best to avoid hairline cracks then the problem arises that the properties of particular species can easily be trumped by how the wood you get is handled. Many species that perform well if handled well will perform badly if handled badly. If you get wood that was improperly dried, or if it was stored poorly after drying, or if your workshop is especially humid, then fussing over the species choice could be for naught. In other words, don't sweat over it too much. No matter what you do, solid wood does expand and contract and some hairline cracks are fairly inevitable -- they aren't defects unless you think they are.
...See More
Cabinets - poplar vs maple, painting on site
Q
Comments (9)
i am in the middle of this right now! my cabs have poplar face frames and all the door and drawer fronts are maple. they are being painted on site right now. it is a bit disruptive but the whole kitchen remodel is disruptive so what is a few more days! details on the on site painting: the professional painter supplied by my GC took over my bonus room and garage. the ENTIRE rooms (ENTIRE!) have been draped in plastic and tarps, they have in effect created their own portable clean rooms. they sprayed 2 layers of primer and now they are spraying the finish coats. they look excellent! they did this once the cabs were installed so doors and drawers are painted and dry out in the garage and the cabinet boxes are painted in place in the kitchen where everthing is also draped and masked. you could have them paint them in a shop where there is a cleanroom, but then they need to transport them and install them where they could get dinged and need to be patched. so seems like each approach has tradeoffs. be prepared for odors when they paint on site and you need to provide them the space to do it. good luck!
...See More
Painted White Cabinets: Wood Quality-MDF or Maple?
Q
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 More
ashley187
7 years ago
Hi Lisa, we are also considering Scherr's for our Ikea boxes. We received our quote and I was about to order a painted poplar Shaker door until I saw this post. Was there that big of a difference between to the Poplar and Maple? Do you mind if I ask what the cost difference was? I didn't realize the sample would take so long to get here, sounds like it really will delay things. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks in advance :)
atiman
7 years ago
OMG! I spoke with someone about ordering a sample back in December but was told to wait. Now, I wish I hadn't. That is a long time to wait for a sample door.

Thanks for the tips.

Also, there's hard maple available, so it sounds as if soft maple is fine to use?
Lisa
Original Author
7 years ago
@ashley187, The difference in price ended up only being about $200 for the soft maple. If you ask Scherr's, the will explain the difference to you. Basically I think the Poplar has less chance of shifting over time as the wood ages. That can give some hairline cracks in the seams where the rails and stiles are.

We did not ever get a sample of the Maple door, only the Poplar. We went with Maple. We haven't specifically tried to ding the real doors like we did the sample poplar door, but we have banged them up a bit during our installation process. They have held up pretty well. We have chipped the paint in a few places but that was mostly on the cover panels which are actually mdf.

@atiman, I think Scherr's would only paint the poplar or soft maple. I think hard maple is left for stains.

If you don't want your sample door finished, then you can probably get it much faster. The bottleneck in the process for us was getting it painted.
ashley187
7 years ago
@Lisa thanks for the tips!

Painted Wood Cabinet Doors/Drawer Fronts - Poplar or Soft Maple

Anglophilia

Comments (6)

Lisa
Original Author

Related Discussions

ashley187

atiman

Lisa
Original Author

ashley187

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Painted Wood Cabinet Doors/Drawer Fronts - Poplar or Soft Maple

Anglophilia

Comments (6)

LisaOriginal Author

Related Discussions

ashley187

atiman

LisaOriginal Author

ashley187

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Lisa
Original Author

Lisa
Original Author