Building Materials: Granite & Lumber for Cabinets

Lumber Uses

• Wood is a tremendously versatile material. It can be used for everything from framing a house to flooring it and building cabinets, and you can use wood scraps to heat the home. Most contemporary cabinets are made with manufactured wood-based sheet goods such as plywood, medium-density fiberboard and press-board. Making cases out of those stable and simple-to-work materials while making doors and drawer fronts from solid wood can give you the best of both worlds. Ninety percent of what you see of an installed set of cabinets is the doors and drawer fronts.

Granite Uses

• The use of granite in cabinets is usually confined to the counters that sit on top of floor cabinets. Granite is decorative, durable and simple to clean, making it an ideal counter top material. When matched by a skilled designer with the correct hardwoods and finishes, a granite counter top can pull a kitchen together and convey a sense of permanence and elegance. Granite counter tops are substantially more expensive than most other options, and so they usually are used only in higher-end homes.

Typical Cabinet Applications

• The basic components of a cabinet are the casing, interior shelves, base, doors, drawers, drawer fronts, counter top and hardware. Lumber can be used for all of those applications, although it rarely is used as counter tops in modern home, except as plywood underlay for a laminate counter top. Hardwood doors frequently are built in the form of panels surrounded by frames. This arrangement allows the panels to shrink and swell in response to changes in humidity without affecting the door's overall dimensions. Both wood and granite can be used for hardware, such as specialty pulls, although door hinges and drawer slides are almost always metal.

Potential Problems

• Like any building materials, lumber and granite must be handled and processed properly for the best results. Wood that wasn't dried properly can present various problems after installation, including warping, excessive shrinking and swelling, and cracking. Granite doesn't shrink and swell, but it is surprisingly fragile when moved during installation. A clumsy installer can wreak havoc on a granite counter top and the rest of the kitchen if he happens to drop the granite. Hiring a professional who has experience with all of the building materials you plan to use can avoid most risks.