The most durable kitchen cabinets are ones made from solid hardwood. Cherry and maple are popular choices. They're the most expensive but they last a long time and look great doing it.
Solid Wood Cabinets
Solid natural wood cabinets are the gold standard when it comes to strength and longevity.
Solid wood cabinets are considered to be one of the most durable and high-quality options for kitchen cabinets. They are made entirely of solid wood, which gives them a natural, warm, and classic look.
Hickory is the most durable domestic wood. Hickory is the one of the strongest domestic wood species you can invest in because of its hardness and strength. It typically is more expensive because it is considered a higher-end wood species. It can combat water damage, scratches, and cracks.
Shaker-Style Cabinets
Known for their simple design and recessed-panel doors, Shaker cabinets have been in style for more than 100 years. Shaker cabinets are popular in farmhouse kitchens, but they also work with a variety of home decor styles.
Simple styles of kitchen cabinets, such as traditional Shaker, sleek contemporary or flat panel are far easier to clean and keep clean. Opt for a stain or paint that has a glaze. This fills in any wood grain cracks and corners that attract dust.
Steer clear of stainless steel and chrome hardware. They show fingerprints and water spots and are harder to clean. Oil-rubbed bronze, satin bronze, polished nickel, brushed nickel and white hardware are the cream of the crop as far as easy maintenance goes. Choose the look that best suits the style of your kitchen.
Plywood: The highest quality kitchen cabinets are made of cabinet-grade multi-layer plywood. Plywood cabinets are strong, easier to install and considerably lighter in weight than MDF or particleboard cabinets. While more expensive, plywood cabinets are a good choice if you expect to own the house for a long period.
Made of pressed wood, MD, or plywood topped by a layer of paper coloured with a heat-fused melamine resin, melamine is the least expensive cabinet material. Variety. The assortment of colours and patterns is enormous, including a rather convincing faux wood grain and textured melamine option.
Depending on the quality of the wood cabinets you purchase, the amount of time they will last will vary. In general, high-quality cabinets can last up to 50 years. This sounds like an incredibly long period of time, but cabinets are in fact one of the longest lasting components of your entire kitchen.
Cabinet Quality Grades. Cabinets are grouped into four grades based on quality of construction: ready-to-assemble (RTA), stock, semi-custom and custom. Decide up front on the amount of money to be invested in cabinetry and then browse cabinetry lines and options within your budget.
Shaker-style cabinetry is a timeless design that fits any budget, whether it's small or unlimited.
Porcelain clad doors
This material is extremely hard wearing, the face panel is heat and scratch resistant.
If you're looking for a bargain, wait until the end of summer or early fall to buy kitchen cabinets – many stores offer discounts to clear out inventory before new models are released.
How do I get kitchen cabinet discounts? You'll find the best deals on kitchen cabinets during the late fall or winter seasons when many cabinet manufacturers have less foot traffic in their showrooms.
Dark paints and stains show dust particles and fingerprints. White cabinets don't, but they show just about everything else. While medium-tone stains aren't immune to wear and tear, they'll show significantly less mess. They're also easier to touch up than paints.
They're made of engineered wood.
Solid wood cabinets, esteemed for their strength and good looks, can quickly run up a five-figure price tag. Ikea cabinet units, on the other hand, are made from a cheaper melamine-clad, medium-density fiberboard (or MDF), a type of engineered wood.
Cheaper cabinets will often use thin panels which then require metal hanging rails with brackets, rails, and a picture frame construction. Sometimes they leave the panel out completely, so the wall shows through.
Fiberboard and melamine foil are the main components of IKEA cabinet boxes. IKEA cabinet doors and drawer fronts are made of fiberboard, covered in melamine foil, paint, wood, or glass. Are IKEA cabinets good? With some basic maintenance, IKEA cabinets can be quite durable.
Shaker Style Cabinets
With clean, classic lines, Shaker is the most popular cabinet door style because it can work beautifully whether your aesthetic is modern, transitional, or traditional.
What they see (and we all drool over in kitchen envy) are pre-finished, ready-to-assemble (RTA) cabinets… …the kinds of cabinets iCabinets supplies nationwide. What you may not know is the reason why RTA cabinets are the preferred choice for HGTV and DIY shows on TV (and probably for your kitchen renovation too).
Ability to Hide Dirt
If you have young kids in the house who are always tracking in mud and other outdoor debris, or if you simply don't want your kitchen cabinets looking dingy all the time, a darker neutral shade like grey can help to mask some of that dirt.
White. Few paint colors stand the test of time quite like white. "Honestly, the only color in my opinion that will never go out of style—in the sense that you can never really pinpoint when it was done—is white cabinets," says Shaolin Low, principal and founder of Studio Shaolin.
Unlike white cabinets, dark cabinets hide dirt and grime pretty well, making them a great choice for kitchens with heavy use or small kids running around.