Bamboo Cabinets Oakland CA

Bamboo Cabinets
They're Green And Stylish Too

If you're looking for a cabinet choice that offers a bit of individuality and won't be found in the next house down the street, bamboo cabinets might be your answer.

Bamboo cabinets offer several benefits and a visual appeal that's uniquely different from cabinetry that's made with more traditional materials. Bamboo is strong and hard and is also a highly sustainable natural resource.

Bamboo cabinets also offer an alternative to the mass-produced stock cabinets made with a good percentage of particle board and medium density fiberboard (MDF). That's because most bamboo cabinets are made with solid bamboo and/or bamboo plywood.

If you're cautious about how bamboo cabinets might look based on having seen bamboo furniture in the past, don't fret. Bamboo has many personalities and can be stained like traditional woods.

So read on to take a closer look at bamboo cabinetry and see if it's a possibility for your next cabinet choice.

Some Basic Bamboo Facts

A Grass That's Hard, Strong And Renewable
Bamboo, despite it's look and feel, is a grass and not a wood. But don't let that fool you. Bamboo is a hard and strong material, having been used for centuries and still used today in many cultures as a prime building material.

Regardless of its botanical classification, what makes bamboo unique and why it's becoming more prevalent is the fact that it's highly renewable and sustainable.

Bamboo has the ability to grow and mature within about 7 years, sometimes sooner. Compare that to hardwood trees that take decades to reach the age when they can be harvested for lumber.

The bamboo plant also remains intact when the bamboo "culms" (the bamboo stalks) are harvested, allowing the regeneration of new culms for future harvests. Hardwood trees on the other hand are consumed at harvest.

Under proper management, bamboo plants provide a valuable building material quickly and sustainably, making bamboo a good choice for green cabinets.

Photo Courtesy Of BambooCabinets.com

Photo Courtesy of BambooCabinets.com

Another benefit of bamboo is its hardness. While this attribute it certainly beneficial for flooring, it has its advantages with cabinets too. Cabinet doors and frames get banged around over time and the harder materials do better than softer ones.

Different Grain Orientation Provides Different Looks
Bamboo products come with three distinct appearances based on the bamboo's grain orientation. But describing bamboo's grain requires a little explanation of how bamboo 'boards' are made.

Photo Courtesy of BambooCabinets.com

The hollow and relatively narrow stalks that characterize bamboo prevent it from being milled into wide planks like lumber from large trees. Rather, the bamboo stalks are sliced into strips and then laminated (glued) together to form boards and planks. The way tho...