kitchen door advice

[midge29]

hia , i,m after some advice regarding materials for kitchen doors and drawer front , i,m planning on refurbing my kitchen by making my own shaker style doors and drawer fronts which i will be painting what would be the best timber to build these, would i be right in thinking poplar/tulip for the frames or would i get away with pine and plywood for the panels,

 

[MickCheese]

How about MDF?

I made some doors recently with 12mm MDF and planted on 6mm MDF to resemble rails and styles.

After painting you would be hard pushed to know they were not traditionally made. I did add a tulip wood strip to the sides as I was using butt hinges.

Mick

 

[custard]

Hello Midge, poplar/tulip wood is a well proven choice for frames. It's cheap, plentiful, relatively stable, but most importantly it takes paint like a dream! For the actual panels that fit within the frames you've a wide choice, MDF is a good option for a shaker style panel (ie without any fielding) but MDF is heavy so don't get anything too thick. Alternatively a good quality birch ply would do but be careful it hasn't become twisted in storage. Personally I'd avoid pine for two reasons, firstly potential shrinkage means the panel has to be made "floating" which adds a lot of time and means it can't be glued into a rebate which adds strength, and secondly there's the added step of preventing resin bleeding through the paint.