real wood or fake-bleached wood cabinets? (Houston, Blum: hardwood floors, custom home, buyers)

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Take a knife's edge, scratch it across the grain, see if wood fibers come out.

It's going to be hard for us here to tell, you need to take someone who can tell you, or take a close up picture, and post.

[Wysiwyg]

if its in perfect shape and you love the house then dont fight it. you need to paint that room anyway some contrast and stainless should help alot. maybe change the hinges/handles. your real problem in this kitchen is the floor, it needs color but you can work with that as well by having color somewhere else
google some 'white kitchen cabinets' images and see if you'd be inspired working with white cabinets. I see a lot of good classy ones

[MissDaisy]

Originally Posted by sbhubbell

Perry homes are generally custom built cabinets, not pre-manufactured off the shelf type. They are real wood. Almost ALL the Perry homes we toured (it was a LOT) had painted wood, which was one of the reason we didn't like them...we prefer the look of a dark stained wood finish. Our second choice home was Perry with a nice natural stain. You probably could strip those and stain them but it would take a lot of work.

Edited to add: Oh I see you want to paint them white...I'm sure that's doable.

While searching for our home last year, we also went to countless, really nice homes, but, as soon as we walked into the kitchen--OH NO!! White cabinets!!!

So we bought from Village Builders, kitchen and master cabinets natural wood with a beautiful sienna stain...goes beautifully with our european decor.

The upstairs baths for the guest rooms are painted white, but we are okay with that. We could have paid to upgrade those to natural, but since they are guest baths and not our living area, decided it wasn't worth the costs..hopefully we won't regret that decision..too late now!

With regards to stripping/staining, I could be wrong, but I think I read or heard somewhere that the painted cabinets are a lesser quality of wood (*paint grade*) vs stain grade..probably has something to do with the quality of the grain?????

If that is true, if you stripped/stained, you might be disappointed with the results..all after a lot of work...

Perhaps re-face????

[sbhubbell]

So funny Miss Daisy, we keep coming back to our Village Builders homes. We love our cabinets, mocha maple with a rope type trim on the top. All of our bathrooms have the white cabinets but I didn't mind much, it was the kitchen that mattered. We have black granite on top of the white cabinets in our master bath and I think the white combined with the sunlight keeps the bath really bright and spa-like.

Yeah I really wouldn't ever strip and stain cabinets myself...hell of a lotta work and you don't know what you'll get.

[MissDaisy]

Originally Posted by sbhubbell

So funny Miss Daisy, we keep coming back to our Village Builders homes. We love our cabinets, mocha maple with a rope type trim on the top. All of our bathrooms have the white cabinets but I didn't mind much, it was the kitchen that mattered. We have black granite on top of the white cabinets in our master bath and I think the white combined with the sunlight keeps the bath really bright and spa-like.

Yeah I really wouldn't ever strip and stain cabinets myself...hell of a lotta work and you don't know what you'll get.

What VB home did you buy? We got the rope trim in the kitchen too..sooo pretty. The granite in our kitchen, (venetian gold, I think?) goes beautifully with our Tuscan theme, and in the master bath we have the black with tan chips, love that too!!

The guest baths have the standard "cultured marble", but since they are smaller baths, I think the white on white is sort of a clean fresh look.

sbhubbell, the really funny story, after commiting to have VB build our home, we then had to go back to CA to prepare our then rental for sale. It had been a rental for 12 years, so it needed some quick and inexpensive *face lifts*. As we were assessing what we needed to do, I walked into the 2 baths, and said, without hesitation..."We need to paint these cabinets WHITE !

Our TX & CA real estate agent/friend starting cracking up!!!

I looked at him and said..."Did those words just come out of MY mouth??? "

[desertsun41]

Originally Posted by stratfordspartans

Why does Perry homes put hinges on the outside of the cabinets where its visible when closed? My mother-in-law's home in Cinco was built by Perry and it has the same type of door hinges that are exposed. Makes it look real cheap. Most of these homebuilders will cut costs anyway they can get away with.

They are called "wrap hinges" and yes they are cheap, ugly and quite out of date. Today the alternative is what is called "concealed hinges". A 32mm hole is bored onto the back side and the hinge has a cup that fits right into the bore. The other half of the hinge mounts to the inside of the stile thereby concealing it.

By not having to bore the 32mm hole is saving one step in the manufacture process thereby saving them money. The fact that people hate looking at an ugly hinge is no matter.

[sbhubbell]

speaking of cabinets, why is that NO ONE puts hardware on their cabinets here? I don't know if I toured a single new home with hardware on the cabinets. I just think nice hardware adds so much. We're adding it ourselves, it's easy to do.

[desertsun41]

Originally Posted by nathan_007

this is a home i am almost ready to put a contract... the fact of the matter is that my real taste is having dark, rich cherry wood cabinets and wanted to know if there is any way to "turn" these into one of those (or close) without having to replace the entire kitchen with BRAND new cabiets for 1000's of dollars... looks like you mentioned i could replace the front door and drawer plates?

Yes nathan you can replace just the doors and drawer faces. Hopefully if you buy them alone the holes will be predrilled for you so there is no lining up and leveling them. Leveling all the doors and drawer faces is quite the challange. Especialy on full overlay doors.

Back to that hinge again.... Some one with some smarts can bore the 32mm holes in the back side and you can purchase some new concealed hinges for those doors. Dont buy those hinges without knowing the backset. The backset is determined by the amount of distance the doors overlap the faceframe, if there is a faceframe. If there is no faceframe then you can still buy concealed "euro" hinges to get the look you want.

[Wysiwyg]

Originally Posted by desertsun41

Back to that hinge again.... Some one with some smarts can bore the 32mm holes in the back side and you can purchase some new concealed hinges for those doors. Dont buy those hinges without knowing the backset. The backset is determined by the amount of distance the doors overlap the faceframe, if there is a faceframe. If there is no faceframe then you can still buy concealed "euro" hinges to get the look you want.

I made my own cabinets and use concealed hinges. This is real easy to do. the the "drill bit" and the guide is available from homedepot/lowes. The concealed hinges are also available. They're $7 a pair and $18 for 5 pairs! go figure

[Wysiwyg]

Originally Posted by sbhubbell

speaking of cabinets, why is that NO ONE puts hardware on their cabinets here? I don't know if I toured a single new home with hardware on the cabinets. I just think nice hardware adds so much. We're adding it ourselves, it's easy to do.

if you notice the cabinet in question is already a deal breaker. you can imagine little hardware stuff like lighting fixtures, door/cabinet handles, faucets etc can be a 'big' issue for another person. its a big deal for cabinets because once you drill holes you're stuck with them