Knotty Pine Kitchen Cabinets

Knotty Pine Kitchen Cabinets

As you know, knotty pine kitchen cabinets are absolutely gorgeous, and usually not badly priced. Oak will usually be less expensive than knotty pine, but not much less.  The photo at right is of a knotty pine kitchen that was stained with a light, Provincial Minwax, then finished with Moisture Resistant Lacquer.

THE PROS OF HAVING KNOTTY PINE KITCHEN CABINETS:

• Beautiful

• Old world, rustic, look

• Easy to match - especially if you are building your house new. Most windows are pine, so using pine trim and cabinetry will already completely match your home.

• Versatile - you can put a clear finish on your pine, stain it, or paint it. A beautiful idea is to paint your kitchen cabinet frames, and clear coat (finish) your doors. It makes for a beautiful contrast.

• Usually economically priced

CON'S KNOTTY PINE KITCHEN CABINETS (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM):

For all the beauty of knotty pine, there are some drawbacks that you need to be aware of.

Pine is soft, and not as strong as other woods. If you have small children, you will need to take extra precautions with your cabinets. We've seen hinges pull out of pine because of it's softness. Or, let's say your little ones will hang on the drawers (like they often do), they may just pull the drawer front off, not to mention the scratches and dents. 

WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE DRAW-BACKS

You can put child safety locks on your cabinets, to keep kids from opening doors and hanging on them.

Another step you can take is to make sure plastic dowels (press-in type hinges, like the Blum hinge at right) are used on your cabinet hinges, not just wood screws. The plastic dowels ensure that hinges can't just pull out of your cabinets (use Blum or Grass press-in hinges, or make sure your cabinet maker does, or that the factory cabinets you purchase utilize plastic dowels).

Real World Experience:

We built knotty pine kitchen cabinets for a customer that had two children, ages five and three. (The photo of the kitchen is above, right, under Con's) The kids were great, but we knew that knotty pine kitchen cabinets might not hold up well in their household. We let the customer know this, but they loved the look of knotty pine so much, they went with it. We used press-in hinges for almost all of the doors, because that was normal for us to do when we built any kitchen. For the base lazy susan doors, however, we didn't use press-in's, nor for the drawer fronts - that was normal as well, and we had never encountered any problems.

The couple had problems their lazy susan doors and drawer fronts falling off, due to the children playing, etc. We learned quickly that utilizing press-in hinges and dowels for the drawer fronts fixed the problem. It really works to use press-in hinges.

HOW TO ACCESSORIZE WITH KNOTTY PINE - PUT IT ON YOUR CEILING!

If you love the look of knotty pine, but are thinking you'd rather have it as an accent, there are other applications for knotty pine that you might like.

Have you ever seen knotty pine kitchen cabinets underneath a knotty pine ceiling? Even if you have oak cabinets or another wood, knotty pine ceilings still look great.  These ceilings are easy to install and maintain too. The picture at right shows a snipped of a knotty pine ceiling above rustic hickory cabinets.

It's best to finish your knotty pine before you install it on your ceiling. You will cover all of the board with finish (get tongue and grove for best results). If you finish your ceiling after it's on, first of all, it will be much harder to finish because you will be working on a ladder, above your head. Secondly, when the wood expands and contracts, you will likely see where you weren't able to finish along the tongue and grove lines at different times of the year.

KNOTTY PINE USED FOR BOOKCASE ACCENTS

If you love knotty pine, you don't have to have it throughout the entire house. Maybe you have a den or another room where you can use knotty pine as an accent wood. The photo at right is of a beautiful gas-fireplace, where we built and installed a knotty pine bookcase on one side, and an enclosed entertainment center on the other side.

In this way, if you are worried your kitchen may get too much traffic for knotty pine kitchen cabinets to stay looking beautiful, you can use knotty pine in another area of the house, where it may holdup better because it is less used and abused.

FINISHING KNOTTY PINE KITCHEN CABINETS

• You can clear coat (put a clear finish on) knotty pine kitchen cabinets.

• You can stain the knotty pine (but if you wait a few years, you'll probably have the same color anyway - pine can really darken over time). If you do stain your knotty pine kitchen cabinets and want a more aged look immediately, be sure to use a wood conditioner, otherwise you will have extreme lights and darks in the wood that don't blend well. Click here to link to our staining page that will give you tips for staining knotty pine kitchen cabinets.

• You can paint the frames of the knotty pine (a deep green is beautiful) and then clear coat (clear finish) the knotty pine kitchen cabinet doors. This is a beautiful contrast, and a great place to begin decorating.

AND AS ALWAYS - HAVE A HAPPY KITCHEN!!!

OTHER RELATED LINKS:

Unfinished Pine Kitchen Cabinets - Want to know more about pine kitchens and finishing - click here.

How to Stain Kitchen Cabinets - Super Easy step-by-step instructions how to stain kitchen cabinets.

Kitchen Cabinet Finishing and Refinishing - Do your homework before you finish or refinish and you'll have an easy time of it.