Painted, foiled or real wood: which fitted-furniture finish lasts in a Dorset home?
· Buying advice · 6 min read
20 years of installs and we've fitted them all. Here's what we recommend depending on the room, the use and the salt air.
Three families of finish dominate fitted furniture: painted, foiled (vinyl-wrapped MDF) and real-wood-veneered. Each has a place; none is wrong.
Painted (sprayed in our workshop): wins on look. Modern, calm, can be any colour, and easy to touch up in 10 years' time. Slightly less impact-resistant than foiled, so we steer customers towards painted for bedrooms and lounges, and away from painted for cupboards that get hammered (utility, kids' boot rooms).
Foiled: wins on durability. Effectively bulletproof against scuffs and damp. The look has come a long way — modern matt foils are very close to a sprayed paint finish at half the cost. Our default for kitchens, bathrooms and utility cupboards.
Real-wood veneer: wins on character. Warm, unique grain, ages beautifully. More expensive and slightly more sensitive to humidity, so we don't recommend it for bathrooms or coastal flats with thin party walls.
Coastal note: if you're within a few hundred metres of the sea (Bournemouth seafront, Swanage, Weymouth), salt-laden air will eat anything not properly sealed. We use marine-grade carcass MDF and well-finished doors as standard for those installs — it's a small cost premium for a much longer life.