There have certainly been times of messy cleanup during dish washing, but not that many. My husband thinks that the dishwasher being just to the right of this cabinet is also contributing but I have never noticed any steam escaping from the dishwasher while it's running. I typically run it at night and let it cool down until the morning. Not until it's cooled down do I open it to empty it. Could the heat emanating from the dishwasher alone be enough to cause the paint to crack and chip like that?

Is it a single cabinet or all of them that are having this problem?

Pictures from further back are needed. Perspective isn’t served by closeups.

The worst cabinet is by far this one that supports a farmhouse sink and is to the left of our dishwasher. The other ones have some dings and dents that I could potentially touch up, but this cabinet is really bad.

I agree with HALLETT & Co in that it looks like water may be running down the right side of the sink.

The type of damage shown is definitely water related. When you say the other cabinets are chipping, is there peeling and lifting of the paint like in this photo? Do you see where the paint is "wrinkling" that is caused by water or heat. Can we see the other cabinets as well? Do you have any moisture inside the cabinet pictured? Is the sink leaking inside?

That’s abuse. Nothing stands up to gallons of water running down the furniture. It’s not a commercial restaurant. Behavior has to change. Or you need to invest in outdoor grade cabinets like stainless steel ones.

Neither the sink or the plumbing is leaking anywhere. So if it's water damage from regular dish washing that means I need to be super super careful from now on. My concern is also the dishwasher placement. I can't relocate it so it is going to be where it is. Steam doesn't escape from it but it it possible that the heat from running would contribute to this level of damage? And if so, what should I do to mitigate for the future? I suppose I'm going to have to have someone sand and respray it here onsite/in place in our kitchen. Is there a type of paint that stands up better to this type of use? And will it look markedly different the the other cabinets around it?

Unfortunately, it is kind of a commercial kitchen because I run a small catering business out of my home. I guess my old disgusting white thermafoil cabinets were a better choice for my needs. But now I've got these and have to make it work so I guess I just need to be extra careful. But regarding a repair, any thoughts on what to use for a repaint?

There is water coming from somewhere weather you can figure that out or not that is a fact. The paint job at the beginniing was not good and I have no idea why you chose maple cabinets if you were painting them. IMO they all need to be stripped and painted properly by someone who is a pro at cabinet painting not house painting. But before that you need to be honestly trying to find where the moisture is coming from because it is there . How do you know if the DW has steam escaping if you always run it at night. Since the big damage is around the water areas there is your problem

You dishwasher is where dishwashers go. To one side of the sink. Dishwashers have insulation around them to protect surfaces from the heat they create so I don't think the heat from the dishwasher is the culprit. Besides paint it looks like you will possibly need some cabinet replacement. The bottom corner looks like the damage is effecting the shape of the cabinet corner (rotted away from the water damage ). Is this on an island or perimeter ?

If you look at the run of wood that buts to the DW it isnt damaged on the DW side. This is water from the sink. Its also A LOT of water to cause that much of a mess. The bottom of the doors are wrinkled so water is sitting there from something. Hence why I asked if there was an interior leak.

Heat doesn’t do this- water does. Tape a paper towel in this corner and do dishes- I suspect the sink slopes down to this side and water you splash on the rim of the sink is running down the face of the cabinet. If this doesn’t get the paper towel wet run the dishwasher when you are home sometime- steam may be condensing on the cold metal and running down the face of the cabinet.

• Well, I had never had custom cabinets made before so I trusted the designer/builder's experience. It was a reputable design/build company that had done many other custom kitchens in and around the New York/Philly/metro area. She said this would be beautiful and I believed her (it was). She knew the manner in which I used my kitchen so I didn't question whether or not painted maple cabinets were the way to go.

• I know that steam doesn't escape from the dishwasher because when I occasionally run it during the day I can see that it doesn't. I think the issue is more likely water dripping down the cabinet face during dishwashing, but after reading the other comments I'm trying to figure out if dry heat coming from the dishwasher, combined with dripping or residual water from washing dishes is the combination that's make this cabinet particularly bad.

Hallet & Co, thank you for this idea. I will do this and see what happens.

I would think it is from the dishwasher. You might not be seeing the steam but they do get hot and the drying cycle usually goes on forever. You might have had something go wrong during the painting process and the heat is getting under the layers of paint/prime. As if you would not know if you have water "streaming down your cabinet from abuse".

You might be right. I can get drippy with my dishwashing but I certainly don't have "gallons of water" pouring down my cabinet!

Design Interior South, thanks for your comment. I appreciate you noticing that the paint isn't chipped or peeling on the dishwasher side. I hadn't actually noticed that and was considering that entire strip as one just affected area. The wood beneath the paint at the bottom corner hasn't rotted - YET. It's still solid and intact with no raised grain, but I see how it looks curved and possibly rotted in the in the photo. It doesn't look curved in reality.

And water does sometimes drip down the front but it really isn't gallons of water or anything extreme. I can think of exactly one time I spilled a pot of water down the front of the sink, but wiped it down right away. I'm just worried that it was a really bad paint job with the wrong kind of paint, on the wrong kind of cabinets (thanks Patricia Colwell Consulting for pointing the out) to begin with. So I guess my next step is to find someone who can refinish it and then be really, really careful once it's done.

Bogle maple is a pretty standard wood type for painted cabinets (doors). Hard maple is considered a durable wood for painted surfaces and it doesn't show grain.

I like Hallets idea of the paper towels so you can try to witness where the source is. Important because you need to fix the problem before you can fix the problem......in other words you can have the cabinets refinished but if the problem causing this still exists you will be back to square one. I asked about the interior leak because often we don't detect one because its small but the results build over time. I would go inside the cabinet after you've use the sink for a significant amount of time and feel up under the sink and its sidewalls to see if somehow water is seeping there. Feel the underbody of the sink. Feel the inside walls of the cabinet. Feel the pipes. Especially feel the wall between dishwasher . Do the same after your run the DW (keep sink off) . You may have a seam leak on the sink.

I don't know if this applies to farmhouse sinks, but Joseph Corlette has mentioned the water / gunk issues when sinks are installed just with clips and not with a strap system. (Here's a thread I saved.) It might be worth taking some pictures under your sink and reaching out to him, too.

When researching dishwashers, I discovered one model vented steam out the side instead of out the front. And that people on the internet had complained the steam hit their farmhouse sink, condensed, and ruined their cabinets. Maybe that’s it,
Also, there is a fabulous gadget called a Nix color sensor. For flat surfaces it can block all external light and use its built in light to illuminate and exactly pinpoint the color. It pairs with the Nix paint app on your phone and will suggest exact paint matches. I love it. All I have to do is spot paint and the blend is perfect, undetectable to the human eye. A huge timesaver.