How do white kitchen cabinets hold up over time?

Question

If you have or have had white cabinets, please tell me

- are they painted, stained or whitewash
- bright white, offwhite, distressed, etc
- how easy/hard to maintain (how do you clean them), specially compared to wood finishes
- are they ok with kids
- would you change them if you could?

Answer 1

Mine are painted white with an oil based paint for durability. I wash them with warm water and any common household cleaner. They have been great for 10 years now. My kids are taught to respect property so no problems there. I like white cabinets with glass inserted on the top ones. Really cool. Have a great year.

Answer 2

Ivory White Kitchen Cabinets

Answer 3

1

Answer 4

I am a kitchen designer and I also have white cabinets in my home. There are different types of white cabinets out there. It is important to ask your sales associate what you are dealing with. For example, Kraftmaid (and other comparable manufacturers out there, like Thomasville or American Woodmark...semi-custom cabinets you can find at Home Depot) predominantly use a thermofoil finish rather than a painted finish. Thermofoil is the same kind of stuff they make PVC piping out of. It is heat applied in the factory, and it gives you a nice, scrubbable finish. Unlike paint, it will not crack. You do have to be careful with thermofoil around your oven, though. Make sure you install "heat shields" (bought through cabinet manufacturer).
They are installed on either side of your range to deflect heat should the seal around your range fail during the self-cleaning phase. Everyday cooking should not cause a problem. White painted cabinets are nice, but be careful when you choose a door style. If you choose a door with mitered corners, keep in mind those corners will expand/contact with time and changes in humidity. Paint will then crack. As for cleaning, a light nonabrasive cleanser works well for both. Generally speaking, white cabinets are great for visually opening a space, just be careful to add some warmth via countertop color, flooring or wall color to avoid a "sterile" look. As for "would you change them if you could?"...I find people who have had white cabinets for a while yern for wood cabinets when updating their kitchen and vice versa. After a while you just crave change. I have never had a customer complain/regret about a white kitchen. Hope this helped!

Answer 5

For a kitchen, you want something durable but it does depend on how much you want to spend. Vinyl is cheaper than say slate or ceramic so it's up to you. My kitchen is bright red with white wainscoting on the bottom half of the walls. I also have gray countertops. I was going for a retro look but decided against a black white or combo black/white floor when I could not find something sturdy in my price range. I lucked up on some great laminate wood flooring, a dark coffee brown color and was quite pleased with the result. It made the kitchen feel 'warmer'. You might consider this too because it holds up well and will still look good if you paint the kitch a different color later.

Answer 6

I have ivory white cabinets and cupboards. I love mine, but it fits my kitchen's size and lighting.

If they are painted with quality paint they will hold up for years, and are no more difficult to clean than any other.

They will show dirt more readily, but a wipe with a sponge or cloth will take care of that. Wood or dark colored cabinetry will get just as dirty, and requires just as much cleaning (not seeing dirt and germs doesn't mean its not there). The upside is you know where to focus cleaning.

In my case, I wanted a brighter kitchen since I had very little natural light in the kitchen and the wood finishes previously in there made the room look dark and small. I love mine.

If you have a broad expansive kitchen might think of darker cabinetry to avoid looking too overwhelming and sterile. Color use really defines a room.

Answer 7

the first question i have to ask is what kind of kitchen doors, im presuming you have white melamine cabinets and melamine shelves. that is the norm for the industry. know white doors if they are just a plain jane run of the mill melamine door, expect to be replacing them in about 5 years. If the doors are a white pvc. ask what their qaurantee is. These doors have had problems of the pvc seperating from the medite core. A white laquar door very expensive if you have children i advise against it. Eventually they will chip. kids are hard on cupboards. Consider this the cabinet companys expect you to be back in 10 years for a remolding or at least redoing your cabinet doors and counters.
Wood doors you have an option in the future to strip the door and do what ever you would like to them a knew coat of laquer will spruce up an old door if it is prepped proprely. even at the least you can sand them down and paint them. consider this wood does not swell up like a ballon when the wood gets wet. When you have a core to a door that is medite and the medite gets wet it swells. along with a core to a melamine door,which keep in mind your cabinets are made out of the same core material.

Answer 8

I owned a cleaning business for nine year and I worked mostly on St Simons and Sea Island in Georgia. People really had nice cabinets in million dollar homes. You really want to to be careful of what cleaning products you use. They need to be very gentle and mild or you can mess up any finish. The question about how easy to maintain and keep clean ,unless you and your family are very neat you will see every food and dirt mark on them. So unless you like to wipe and clean all the time I would not get them. The same goes for white floors , it take very little to make them to look dirty. I had white kitchen floors and I was always cleaning them. I would NEVER have cabinets or floor white you have enough cleaning to do with putting more on yourself.

Answer 9

I am a painting contractor,and I think white cabs lookm great but are very high maintenance,if they are true wood ,in due time the miters will begin to split and there will be gaps in all corners, also the panels may shift as the stiles settle,and there will be an eigth of an inch strip of unpainted door panel showing through, I would go with stained cabinets as they are much more forgiving.

Answer 10

They hold up well if they're made of melamine. It's sort of a plastic surface and is cleanable. I had painted white cabinets in the past. They just look cheap and dingy to me.