In “The Wizard of Oz,” it’s lions and tigers and bears, oh my! In the world of semi custom cabinets, it’s cherry and walnut and oak, oh my! Wait! It’s also maple…and here’s why you might want to make maple cabinets your wood of choice for your new kitchen…

Maple cabinets will last

There’s a good reason humans have been using maple for furniture and cabinets for a very long time: It’s tough! Maple is a hard wood—a very hard wood—making it a durable choice for such a hardworking room like a kitchen. When you buy your cabinets from quality semi custom cabinets company and give them proper care, your maple cabinets should last for decades.

Maple cabinets are versatile

Maple is a pretty wood, but it’s a good choice for kitchens because it is also so versatile. Maple has a smooth, even grain that makes it suitable for stains and painting both, because you get consistent results. If you’re shopping semi custom cabinets looking for a particular color or shade for your new kitchen, consider maple to be an option because it can be almost whatever you want it to be.

Check out the kitchen in this picture. Those are maple cabinets! You wouldn’t know it just by looking at them because they are stained dark and look more like walnut, right? The wood is maple, the style Madison, and the stain dark as can be.

Maple cabinets are an affordable option

Speaking of maple cabinets that look like walnut, we’re on to the third reason maple makes sense as a wood choice: price. Maple tends to be more affordable than cherry or walnut. But if you want a cherry or walnut look in your kitchen, your semi custom cabinets can be stained to look like a dark wood, even if they’re not, when they’re maple.

Certainly if your heart is set on cherry or another type of wood for your kitchen, you have plenty of choices among semi custom cabinets. But if you’re going for durable, versatile and affordable, you might want to make it maple.