Welcome back, wood!
I missed you, oh, how I missed you!
It is official, wood is back in trend. Not your conventional oak cabinets, but more decorative, ornate and beautiful wood. After decades of paint-domination in kitchen cabinet designs, wood is making it’s comeback. Shyly, it started with white/wood combos and now, it’s picking up pace. People are looking for just the right wood type, just the right stain colors, and the results are gorgeous!
Let me stop for a second to explain myself: I’m not talking about the material of the cabinet boxes or doors, I am talking about the design and appearance of doors. For very long time, wood was primed, painted, glazed and then coated to give it that smooth painted surface material. When I talk about wood, I am referring to the grain of wood showing through stain or tinted varnish. I will not be covering laminated cabinets, because that is a whole other conversation topic.
So, where do we begin with the wood cabinets? the best way would be to narrow down the style that you are looking for: is it contemporary, modern, are you going for a beachy vibe or chalet style kitchen is your jam? Determining the style that you are going for will stipulate the color pallet, the wood type and the design, obviously.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of wood stains colors and shades, and then, of course, you get glazes. With stain, it’s pretty straight forward: the wood is stained, and the color is absorbed into the grain, leaving the natural grain visible but altering the color. Depending on wood type, same color stain will look different, because of the difference in grain structure. Softer grain will result in darker color, while harder one will appear lighter, because less stain is absorbed.
And then, of, course, you have glazes. The process of glazing involves application of a color on top of the stained surface and then wiping it away. The color stays in small crevices of the wood and all nooks of the door, creating a different shade of the original stain. Glazes come in different colors, creating different effects on the finished surface: black to darken the color and emphasize the design, adding depth and dimension; chocolate/latte to make the stain of a warmer shade; pewter/silver to make the stain appear a cooler shade.
And then of course, you get tinted varnishes. It’s essentially a very pigmented stain, so the texture of the wood shows through, but the color is covered. See below, the pattern of oak is showing through the varnish and exaggerated further by the glaze.
Now, to the types of wood. With maple, birch and cherry being well known and trusted options for cabinetry for years, you may also choose a more decorative wood. For example: alder, hickory, walnut, or lyptus (hybrid of two eucalyptus tree: Eucalyptus grandis and Eucalyptus urophylla). With beautiful wave-like grain of walnut, knotty alter or hickory with it’s superior color variations, you have plenty to choose from. Keep in mind, not only do woods look different, they age different also. So, oak will turn more golden with age, same as maple; walnut lightens with time; cherry turns redder with age, and will react to light; hickory will change little with age and is one of the hardest woods, so it will withstand quite a bit of abuse; and lyplus turns deeper color with time, it is also one of the most environmentally friendly woods out there, since it’s being commercially grown, eucaliptus grows fast and it has very few knots and imperfections, so less wood is being wasted.
With you figuring out the type of wood and finish, the rest is pretty much straight forward design.
So, don’t be shy, welcome wood back as an old friend, and it will give you the comfort, warmth and beauty it has been sharing with humanity for centuries!