The answer is yes and no. Painting a cabinet door won’t cause any problems to the door but the paint itself may not age as well as you expect. Because some woods paint better than others we offer paint-grade doors in several wood types. We usually recommend Poplar or Alder for the frames and MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) for the panels. Woods with an open grain, like Oak, don’t paint well because the open grain tends to paint with an Orange-peel look. One point to consider with painted cabinet doors is that the wood will expand and contract slightly with changes in humidity. This is normal and will occur even after the door is painted. The problem is that when the door swells and shrinks the paint, once dry, doesn’t. This will cause cracks in the paint at the wood joints. It doesn’t mean the door has failed, it simply means that the paint has dried and is no longer as elastic as the wood in the door. So with painted cabinet doors expect to see cracks in the paint appear at all joints a few months to a few years after the paint dries.
