New Built In Cabinet in a Victorian Living Room: Paint or Stain?
My wife and I live in a circa 1900 Victorian style home with original chestnut-stained woodwork throughout. We are adding a built-in cabinet-bookshelf. Our dilemma: should we stain it to come close to matching the existing woodwork, or should we paint it? And if you recommend painting it, what color?
The pictures of our living room below show where it will be located: in the currently empty portion of the wall to the right of the fireplace. The blue tape shows the height of the countertop. Below the countertop will be cabinets covered with doors. Above the countertop will be book shelves. They will run almost to the ceiling, stopping at the same height as the top of the door transom on the left of the fireplace. The width of the unit will fill the entire space between the wall with the window and the fireplace. [We know the couch is quite close to the unit, but it won’t be a permanent fixture.]
We’re working with an experienced professional cabinet maker. Regardless of the finish he uses, the unit will match the overall dimensions and style of the existing woodwork.
We’re hesitating with staining the unit because, the room is fairly dark (the photos are in the morning—at peak light—and with the lights on; the room is usually notably darker), and the stain will never match exactly. While our cabinet maker is confident he can match it closely, he’s pointed out that since it’s not feasible to use chestnut any more, the wood specie will be different (likely an oak), and just the age of the original wood work will result in differences in texture and sheen.
If the unit is painted, our cabinet maker will apply and factory-level finish in whatever color we desire.
So we’re looking for your recommendations: stain or pain? If paint, what color?
The remaining pictures, below, are intended to provide some additional perspective of the surrounding area. The first one is a view of the dining room from the living room, the remaining two show the foyer from the living room.
Thanks in advance for your recommendations!
~David
Comments (8)
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Comments (10)Well, how about a third option? We have a similar situation, and ended up painting the built-ins the same color as the wall (but high gloss), since all white seemed like it would be too stark, and stained seemed like it might appear to be a dark hole, or too much contrast. The wall is a pale taupe-y white, I guess you'd call it. Kitchen seen from family room Not finished yet, but painted: you can see white trim and painted built-ins together here, as well as stained furniture. We did stain the main shelf, similarly to the floor. Here it is with fireplace finished...See MoreCustom built vanities: What wood? Paint or stain? What colors?
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Comments (5)What is the color of the cabinet (it's hard to tell in your photo)? I painted my living room Classic Silver from Behr paints. It's a beautiful, medium colored silvery gray that looks great with about every color. You could look on Behr's website or any other paint website, and virtually paint a living room. That should give you an idea how the color would work but I also recommend buying paint samples first before buying enough paint to paint the room. It will save you frustration, time, and money. Before choosing the Classic Silver, I purchased two other gray paint samples along with the Classic Silver, painted large enough sections on my living room wall, looked at the paint colors for a few days before making my choice. I made sure the color worked well on sunny and cloudy days....See MoreHelp with a living room built-in and hiding our TV
Comments (2)How do you feel about barn doors? Totally get it if it's not your thing, but that would be an inexpensive way to do the doors, at least. You'd need your shelves to be 2x the TV cabinet width - or you could do bypass barn doors, but that's trickier. I also wanted to do something similar to hide our TV, and I thought sliding doors might work for us (they cover whatever cabinet they're in front of), but you'd need 2x TV cab width for that for sure. This is what I was thinking for ours (sorry for the link to a blog): https://jenwoodhouse.com/modern-sliding-door-entertainment-center/ Your other option would be to have the cabinet company just do bookshelves on either side and leave the TV space open. The bookshelves would be pretty inexpensive, I think. You'd just need to figure out how to cover the TV space. You could mount shelves above the TV on the wall if you wanted to fill that space. Just spitballing here, but those are some ideas....See More
decoenthusiaste
5 years ago
That will be a good location for the TV.
https://homewarranty.firstam.com/blog/5-reasons-not-to-mount-tv-above-fireplace
ddelong1130 thanked decoenthusiaste
ddelong1130
5 years agohoussaon
5 years ago
Sina Sadeddin Architectural Design