Types of Kitchen Cabinet Finishes

You have worked with the designer or used some online kitchen design software to create the perfect kitchen for your home, but to get the final look of your kitchen just right, you need to be aware of the different kitchen cabinet finishes available in the market. Just changing the finish of your kitchen can completely change the feel of your kitchen. There are 5 main type of finishes used in the kitchen industry -

Laminates

Laminates are the most commonly used finish in India. Laminate is a thin hard decorative sheet (thickness usually ranges from 0.6 mm to 1.5 mm) that is actually a blend of paper and plastic materials. Sheets of paper soaked in phenolic resin (from which plastic is made) and melamine resins are pressed together under high pressure and temperature to make decorative Laminate sheets. Laminates can come in all kind of shades like woodgrain, stone, metal, etc.

kitchen-cabinet-laminate

Veneer

Veneers are very similar to laminates except that they are made of thin slices of actual wood instead of paper. For example teak veneer means a thin sliced layer of teak wood, or oak veneer means a sliced layer of oak wood. Since veneers are made from wood they will always have wood grain designs and a wood appearance. Compared to a woodgrain laminate, veneer finishes look more like natural wood, but also need to be handled more carefully.

kitchen-cabinet-veneer

Polyurethane a.k.a PU

PU kitchen cabinet finishes are becoming more and more popular each year due to their high shine nature. Polyurethane is like melted plastic. It is usually applied as a spray. Once hardened, it forms a strong protective shell over wood. It gives a great shine to wood furniture and wooden flooring. Polyurethane finish is hard and durable and is scratch proof. Hardening usually takes around 12 hours.

kitchen-cabinet-pu

Lacquer

Lacquers are resin-based solutions which dry into a hard transparent film when exposed to air. Lacquer dries much more quickly than PU, and it's therefore much faster to apply a lacquer finish as compared to PU finish.

kitchen-cabinet-lacquer

Back-painted glass

As the name implies, back painted glass is a form of strengthened glass which is painted in different shades on the back side, and then viewed from the front side.

kitchen-cabinet-backpainted-glass

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