Painted wooden cabinets can greatly enhance a room with their refined look. By selecting from a range of paint styles you can personalize your wooden cabinetry to suit your unique preferences and elevate your space. However, if you are planning to paint your cabinets, it’s important to first consider the choice of wood before you even get started.
The best woods for painted cabinets offer durability, stability, and a smooth finish. Popular choices include hardwoods like maple, birch, and poplar, which provide a uniform grain and excellent paint adherence. Softwoods like pine can also work but may require extra care to avoid dents or blemishes.
Painting oak, and other open-grained wood species, can be challenging due to the wood’s prominent grain pattern and open pores. While you can use these types of wood, you’ll need to use a grain filler to get a smooth finish which adds extra cost and time to the painting process.
MDF (medium-density fiberboard) is a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative that offers a smooth surface for painting but may be less sturdy than solid wood options.
Ultimately, the best wood for painted cabinets will depend on your budget, design preferences, and desired level of durability.
Belose we’ll go into more detail about the best types of wood for painted cabinets.
Best Types Of Wood For Painted Cabinets
An artist has to decide on what medium to use; a woodworker chooses what kind of wood is required for a project. Different factors like color, availability, ability to take paint or stain, and so on, are all taken into consideration.
Here are a few types of wood best suited for painted cabinets:
Poplar
Over the years, poplar was the preferred choice of wood for painted cabinets. Maple is a strong competitor, though. The reason for this is that poplar tends to “fuzz up” during sanding. If the woodworker doesn’t notice these imperfections, they can show up after painting, marring the overall look of the cabinet surface. However, poplar continues to be used thanks to its affordability.
Alder
Although alder also takes paint well, it has a high rate of absorption for primer. It is one of the softer types of hardwood that is found in the Northwest and perhaps not available in the rest of the United States. Hence, you will find alder more on the west coast.
Birch
Birch is suitable for painting, and you can also get it in the form of birch plywood. It is sturdy and durable, so this wood can take a beating from kids around the house as it is less prone to scratches. It requires less sealant or primer that the other varieties of woods, but costs more.
Soft Maple
Soft maple is another favored wood in cabinetry. Unlike alder, there is no tendency to fuzz up with soft maple as you sand it. You will also find this wood an easy one to sand and paint. The rate of paint absorption is even less than other wood, and you get an excellent and smooth finish on painting it.
Pine
Due to the wide availability of pine, you will find it used in furniture all over. It is an affordable variety of wood. You can get different pine grades, so ensure that you get one that is suitable for painting.
Hard Maple
Hard maple is the most expensive paint-grade wood that you can get. However, it also costs the most. The National Hardwood Lumber Association does not monitor hard maple color, so you are likely to get some off-color wood.
Woodworkers find this grade of wood challenging to use with natural finishes, but it takes on paint quite well. Due to this reason, you can look for off-color hard maple to get paint-grade wood at no extra cost.
Plywood
Plywood is a combination of different layers of wood veneers glued together into boards. You get different grades of plywood, namely, structural, exterior, interior, and marine. For making cabinets, we use interior plywood.
The grain of each layer of plywood is at right angles to each other. This orientation makes plywood extremely tough, and it does not crack. It would help if you looked for ‘A’ grade plywood, which you will find to be the smoothest and most comfortable to paint.
Medium-Density Fiberboard (MDF)
Unlike plywood, medium-density fiberboard (MDF) comes under the category of what we call “engineered wood”. MDF gets formed by breaking down wood fragments into wood fibers and then converting them into boards. This type of wood serves well for making recessed doors for cabinets.
Pro tip: Avoid using oak plywood if you want to paint your cabinet. Oak plywood absorbs primer and paints rapidly
Plywood vs. Solid Wood: Pros And Cons
Now that you have had a good look at the various types of wood that you can use for painted cabinets, you may wonder about the comparison between plywood and solid wood.
Plywood is an extremely versatile form of wood for making cabinets. It is tough, cuts easily, and you can get huge sections of it. Moreover, you can shape plywood, and it also takes paint very well.
However, the limitations of plywood make solid wood a favored choice for cabinets. That said, even solid wood has its downside, so ultimately, you need to consider the pros and cons of both types of wood to make a suitable choice.
Here is some interesting information:
Plywood Pros
- Plywood is a manufactured wood
- Easy to maintain
- Better strength and dimensions
- ‘A’ grade doesn’t have any defects
- Easy to select as there are fewer categories and types than solid wood
- Suitable for applications where we need sheet material
- Readily available
Plywood cons
- Tendency to sag under heavy loads
- Need to paint or cover it
- Layers may separate out through exposure to moisture over time
- Prone to tearing on the edges and corners while cutting
- Required to add “edging strips”
- Not possible to sculpt plywood
Solid Wood Pros
- Solid wood can also have great strength
- Beautiful, natural look
- Rigid and stiff
- Less tendency to sag under heavy loads
- You can plane and machine solid wood easily into precise shapes and sizes
- It is stronger as it is homogenous unlike plywood
- Easy to maintain depending on the type of wood used
- It is possible to create intricate carvings with solid wood
Solid Wood Cons
- Tendency to warp and expand with exposure to moisture
- Difficult to select solid wood due to the complicated grading
- Need to polish it every two to three years
- More expensive than plywood
- Not as readily available as plywood
Conclusion
If you want to paint your cabinets, feel free to do it. By reading this article, we hope that you have gotten rid of any apprehensions you may have had regarding painted cabinets.
You can select some suitable wood for your next woodworking project once you know the best types of wood for painted cabinets. You will be able to create some beautiful, painted cabinets for kitchens, bathrooms, or wherever you locate them.
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