Why Is Oak "Dated"?

[Ole Anderson]

When I built my home in 1975 I went with dark stained Pine trim and matching Birch slab doors. Cabinets were dark Oak Formica. Over 5 years I yanked it all out and replaced it with, you guessed it, golden oak trim and slab doors. Finished the transformation 20 years ago. Also went with the white euro style kitchen cabs with the golden oak pulls along the bottom. Then I built this huge computer hutch out of Oak, golden too. When I finally got to the master bedroom, I switched over to a dark Red Oak stain when I switched out to Oak from the original Pine and Birch, which by then had been painted. Went with the same stain on the Mission style Oak bed. Looks much better than the golden color. BUT I plan on living out my life in this house so I don't give a hoot what somebody else thinks of my tastes. I did migrate to Hickory last year with my second kitchen remodel.

[Jason Roehl]

Heck, our house was built in 1974. Still rockin' the dark-stained pine. The kitchen cabinets are a dark brown oak, with a funky ladder style of door (holy cow these things are ugly). In the basement, we still have the heavy, burlap-like wallpaper, combined with dark wood paneling (it's actually wood!), and the half bath there has a slightly different style of burlap wallpaper, a dark particle board/thermofoil cabinet and a Brady Bunch orange laminate countertop. We have no plans to move at any time in the future, so it's going to get redone how we like it, and we'll go from there. I want to do hickory cabinets in the kitchen, some hickory flooring in the living/dining room, then I was thinking oak trim throughout, but we'll see. Maybe I'll go maple. Either way, it would get no stain, shellac and waterborne only. I like the oil-rubbed bronze finishes, so we'll do that for door knobs, cabinet pulls, etc. Some day.

So many people change jobs so often now that they don't expect to be in a house more than 5 years, and the styles seem to change so quickly now that if that's your thing--always having the latest style--you may as well use the disposable cabinets from IKEA.

[Chris Hachet]

Depends on the price your trying to sell your house in also. Around here, almost EVERYTHING has oak cabinets if the house is below about 250K...

[Jim Matthews]

For or my new house I made my cabinets from African Mahogany. These are shaker style. All of the lower have drawers except for speciality for the mixer lift and cutting board storage. Also for the blind cabinet that has a Rev-A-Shelft pull out. My wife says these are all the latest things. I don't think Mahogany will go out of style as it is not common, but the shaker style may.

edit spelling

I look at pictures of houses like this and one idea springs to mind,
no kids. Everything is still square, there are no broken handles
and the marble has no gnaw marks or superglued chips in place.

By the time I can have a kitchen that looks this good,
they won't let me handle sharp objects.

[Chris Hachet]

I look at pictures of houses like this and one idea springs to mind,
no kids. Everything is still square, there are no broken handles
and the marble has no gnaw marks or superglued chips in place.

By the time I can have a kitchen that looks this good,
they won't let me handle sharp objects.

I have raised a family of five in my house, and ours was always the house everyone wanted to hang out at. Well loved might describe our current home....which is why I will be building a set of cabinets sometime in the next year.

[Jeffrey Martel]

As one of the 20-somethings that is talked about, if I was shopping for a house (which I did last year) and a kitchen had oak cabinets and some colored countertops and a tile floor, you better believe that it is going to be ripped out and re-done. That's going to go into whether I feel the house is worth the money or not.

For my purposes, Oak should not be used outside of the shop when a cheap hard wood is needed. I don't care for it at all, even quarter sawn. Although I love the mission/Arts & Crafts style, I much prefer that in Cherry or Walnut. I'm currently doing all of my main floor furniture in a A&C style out of Walnut.

[William C Rogers]

When I worked at aristokraft in the mid 1990s, most of the cabinets we sold were red oak with a light colored stain. It does look dated to me. We sold a ton of rigid thermofoil white doors, too. I wonder what happened to those, because the frames were painted white, and I know white paint doesn't stay white, but RTF sure does.

It's funny that on the roseanne show back in the mid 1990s when they "won the lottery" and had their kitchen redone, it went from some kind of painted softwood to light colored oak to show that they "made it".

Oak is the low cost option for amish and mennonite furniture everywhere I go around here, sometimes maple is the same price and sometimes not and cherry is always an upcharge. Given my location, it's not hard to find milled lumber here, though. Red oak is everywhere, it grows fast and it's common. We were just starting to get increasing orders back in the 1990s for maple and they had added cherry while I was at aristokraft. If I were buying a house (and I'm not boasting, my house still has varnished cabinets from the late 60s or early 70s that I'm slowly replacing with cherry that is already out of style - it has lacquer only on it over a shellac sealer), I would expect a discount for oak compared to a house that had newer cabinetry.

I'm well aware that I will get all of my solid cherry cabinets up, and the next person who moves into the house will want something that looks like it's Ikea, and they'll have the cabinets taken out and thrown away. That's their choice.

I look at pictures of houses like this and one idea springs to mind,
no kids. Everything is still square, there are no broken handles
and the marble has no gnaw marks or superglued chips in place.

By the time I can have a kitchen that looks this good,
they won't let me handle sharp objects.

I have grandkids every day after school. We will see how long it last!

[Mac McQuinn]

This thread is making me nervous....2 years ago I built rift sawn white oak cabinets in he shaker style for my kitchen. I'm thinking the oak you're referring to is the plain sawn red oak with the cathedral grain that was so popular in the 70's.

Scott,
My house is full of rift & quarter sawn white oak furniture and when I had a very successful agent for over 40 years do a walk through for thoughts, she stated "Don't change a thing" it's perfect and the decor was better than any new house she's listed in quite some time. That said, I have a tough time taking Real Estate agents too seriously and basically do what I'm comfortable with and like. If the new owner wants something different, that's what paint is for.
Mac

[Kent A Bathurst]

I want to use maple and walnut. I did make one piece of furniture out of cherry. My wife insists on oak.....

And your point is...............???????

[keith micinski]

I thought that was precisely their job?

There job is not access market trends, there job is to assign a value to a home using a mathematical formula that is very accurate. I hear all of the time "what someone will pay is what something's worth". This statement is 100 percent false. What someone will pay is what the value of the item is to THEM. Something's value isn't determined by one persons value. The appraiser can absolutely not like oak cabinetry and think that it won't be a selling point for the home to perspective buyers but if it's clean and functional they should not deduct for it. This would be no different then them deducting money off of your appraisal because they didn't like your color pallet and would prefer for the paint in your home to be more earth tones. Very often what a homes value is and what you can sell it for are two different things altogether but I find a lot of people don't understand that.

[Teri Lu]

Hi Julie,

I assume you're moving for some good reason. That said, you're a victim of the current style perpetuated by realtors, interior designers and the "fashion industry" selling to the Sheeple. Your cabinets could be made of "Gold-Pressed Latinum" and if the buyers weren't Ferengi, then you'd be out of luck.

Personally, I'm not that keen on oak of any variety (or color) but then I'm not any sort of fashionista either. I currently like the simple "Scandinavian" look (not the white thermofoil, but very light toned wood) but not the cheap construction of most of IKEA's line. Their good stuff isn't so cheap.

If you want to see "what's in style" look at some of the programs on TV. One on the PBS Create channel is "For Your Home (FYH)". The "host" is an interior designer shrilly saying "you NEED ... this or that". Note that she keeps saying "... NEED ..." instead that's the "current style".

I know it may give you a lot pain, but "paint will cover a lot of sins". That's assuming there isn't some trim that shows it's age. Paint is inexpensive.

The French probably have the correct idea, cabinets are supplied by the buyer. That way, the style is up to the buyer and not the seller. That's why they "invented" the "French Cleat".

Good Luck,

-- Teri

A realtor came through the house to do a selling appraisal. She deducted $15K for the bathrooms and noted "functional obsolescence" as the reason. I asked her why, since the bathrooms function perfectly well. She said tile colors and oak cabinets.

My first woodworking project was made out of pine. When I could afford oak, I felt like I had arrived. Now it seems to have about the same status as pine.

To "correct the problem" the realtor suggested IKEA cabinets. So even cheap mdf outranks oak? What am I missing?

[Chris Padilla]

Very often what a homes value is and what you can sell it for are two different things altogether but I find a lot of people don't understand that.

Sounds like semantics to me. Home values are determined by what OTHER comparable homes are selling for within a given period within a given location. And those values are determined by what the homes sold for. If what you said it true, then we could set a price tag for a home and forget that it could change for whatever reason. Value is a subjective term IMO. One man's garbage is another man's treasure.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

A home's value is what a buyer/or buyers is/are willing to pay. It's very subjective. It's effected by a lot of elements including current interest rates, local economy, supply and demand of houses etc. It's value isn't relative to it's appraised value for taxes!

In 1977 I bought a home in a now well known, popular Oregon city for $31,500. 20 months later I got a promotion, moved to a Chicago suburb and sold the same Oregon house with no noticeable improvements for $41,000. There was an influx of people coming into town, they were primarily from out of state and the local prices of homes looked cheap compared to their previous locale.

Was the house worth an additional $9,500 because my family and I had lived in it for 20 months? Hardly!

The value it brought at closing was what the buyer was willing to pay or sometimes called "current market value".

[Myk Rian]

What am I missing?

A decent realtor.

[David Weaver]

There job is not access market trends, there job is to assign a value to a home using a mathematical formula that is very accurate. I hear all of the time "what someone will pay is what something's worth". This statement is 100 percent false. What someone will pay is what the value of the item is to THEM. Something's value isn't determined by one persons value. The appraiser can absolutely not like oak cabinetry and think that it won't be a selling point for the home to perspective buyers but if it's clean and functional they should not deduct for it. This would be no different then them deducting money off of your appraisal because they didn't like your color pallet and would prefer for the paint in your home to be more earth tones. Very often what a homes value is and what you can sell it for are two different things altogether but I find a lot of people don't understand that.

I'll bet loan agents and servicers wouldn't agree with you since they're backing the loan and exposed. The realtors probably wouldn't enjoy setting a price based on something other than the value of the homes either.

When I check online, I keep seeing articles saying that the appraisal should approximate the price of the home based on recent comparable sales.

I think you need to substitute the term value for market value. Julie is trying to sell her house, she needs a realistic market value and not a hypothetical value. Otherwise she runs the risk of being like the prior story of the older gentleman refusing to recognize what the market values.