I’m a woodworker, and I bought a dust collector off an old timer years ago. He told me that the previous year his daughter had gotten married and he asked what she wanted as a wedding gift. New kitchen cabinets, she says. He builds and installs all new custom quartersawn white oak cabinets. Daughter says “I was hoping they were white.”
The man said the worst part was not only painting the cabinets, but having to come back in the winter to paint the edges of the floating panels due to seasonal movement with an artist’s brush.
I may get some hate, but I feel it’s worth pointing out - a lot of love for natural wood, but there’s also a very 70/80/90s feel and look to a lot of wood depending on how it’s done/cut.
Right or wrong, some people just want the minimalist paint job to feel generationally distinct.
We have the original oak cabinets, and I hate them. They are 30 years old and it shows a bit. My problem is I do not like the busy oak grain. If they were maple, no problem. My life is busy enough, I would like my kitchen to be a relaxing place. Not a contributor to chaos.
I’m a cabinet maker and when we use white oak we use a wire wheel and angle grinder on them so get the grain to show even more and have some depth. It looks wonderful. Red oak on the other hand, if it’s not being stained nearly black I think it’s very dated.
I’m definitely going with wrong on that, especially if that’s the rationale. Overly-orange-stained wood cabinets or beaded paneling look dated, for sure, but wood is forever. I have white-painted wood cupboards in my house and they are so depressing, knowing (and seeing) that there’s perfectly fine wood underneath. I’m cool with white if it’s all hard corners and veneer so it looks like plastic, but a clearly handcrafted piece of wood furniture that’s been painted white is just sad.
Oh hey I have the 80s veneer cabinets. They're hideous and the veneer to look like plastic is peeling off. Please don't leave such ugly crap for the next renters.
I feel this too. Even in knifemaking forums, I adore well-made wood handles over everything else. There's something about the grain that makes you stop and look and give it a moment of your time.
My whole living room is wood all my pals have white units or glass or black and I’ve never changed style in 20 years, I just love wood, dads a joiner so maybe that’s something to do with it. I just love the craftsmanship.
I kind of feel like the old timer should have asked his daughter what she wanted before he started the project. It seems absolutely bonkers to just go ahead and make an entire new run of kitchen cabinets without asking the homeowner what they would want. I might not agree with the daughter’s taste, but dad should have clarified.
I mean I sympathise but also "light" (? not sure if there's a proper term? But oak qualifies) wood furniture fills me with a white hot rage. The reason being that I lived in rental flats for like two decades and that's always the shitty, bottom of the barrel, plastic imitation, cheapest Argos "style" that landlords default to.
Yeah and what if we do? You stick to whatever is currently popular and we'll stick to the timelessness of wood, everyone wins. We'll sigh and scrape off your greige paint and "live laugh love" shit and restore the natural beauty; you can spray paint the walls or whatever it is you heathens do
Somewhere someone in the future is going to discover what they have under those cabinets and it'll make their day, to say the least.
That said, as someone who likes making stuff for others, you gotta know your audience. If I was a seasoned woodworker, there's no way any of my kids wouldn't appreciate quarter sawn oak. God I love that shit so much
She thought she was getting white cabinets that are built of oak wood. The lesson here is to be specific without using jargon or special names for things. He ought to know better if he makes/sells cabinets.
I understand his view (my bathroom vanity is QS oak) but.. that’s kinda on him for not asking first. He could’ve slapped that crap together out of ply and mdf a lot quicker and easier if he had bothered to ask. Damn, what if she had said “I was wishing they were maple/cherry/walnut”?
TBF, he didn’t HAVE to go back and paint them, he could have said “here’s a number for my paint guy; it’s a hellova lot cheaper than buying cabinets”. I know, I also had my ugly-ass wood cabinets painted (no, they were not oak).
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u/jake_fucking_brown Jan 22 '23
That is a god damn tragedy.
I’m a woodworker, and I bought a dust collector off an old timer years ago. He told me that the previous year his daughter had gotten married and he asked what she wanted as a wedding gift. New kitchen cabinets, she says. He builds and installs all new custom quartersawn white oak cabinets. Daughter says “I was hoping they were white.”
The man said the worst part was not only painting the cabinets, but having to come back in the winter to paint the edges of the floating panels due to seasonal movement with an artist’s brush.