Matte or Gloss Kitchen Doors: Which Is Better?
Matt or gloss is not settled by taste, but by how the surface behaves with light and with fingerprints. It depends both on the level of sheen and on the material the surface is made on.
Gloss fronts: more light in a small kitchen
Gloss reflects light and sends it back into the room. In a small kitchen that works literally: the window is mirrored in the wall units, and the room reads brighter than it is.
In the photograph below, white gloss in RAL 9010 runs the whole length of the line, while the worktop and the wall panel carry a wood pattern. The curtains and the window opposite are visible in the wall units - that is the effect itself.
The same gloss shows everything else as well. Fingerprints, dust and splashes by the sink appear on it sooner than on a matt surface.
Matt fronts: a surface that does not glare
A matt surface scatters light instead of reflecting it. The colour stays the same on it under a lamp, in the sun and in the evening - there are simply no highlights to cut across the tone.
In the project shown, matt dark blue fronts cover the wall from end to end. Three pendants hang over the table and there are downlights in the ceiling - not one of them is reflected in the fronts.
Dark matt fronts and upkeep
On dark matt painted MDF fronts, fingerprints and small marks show up more than on light ones. That is a matter of upkeep, not a fault in the material: a dark matt kitchen gets wiped more often.
The black matt fronts in the photograph below stand in direct daylight from a full-wall window and stay even, without a single highlight.
Upkeep is the same for every front: a soft damp cloth and neutral cleaners. A fresh stain comes off at once, a dried one with weak soapy water. We do not use solvents or abrasives.
Fenix: a matt surface that keeps no fingerprints
Fenix is a matt material that keeps no fingerprints. Small surface scratches on it can be repaired with heat, following the manufacturer's instructions, and the surface itself has antibacterial properties. There are more than twenty shades, from white to black.
The Fenix palette is narrower than that of painted MDF: if you need an exact tone from a colour chart, the choice narrows.
Painted MDF: when you need an exact tone
We take painted MDF to exactly the tone you bring us - there is no limit on colour here. It can be painted matt as well as gloss.
We mill a grip into the edge of the same front, and the kitchen manages without surface-mounted handles. Across the face itself we run decorative milling: abstract shapes, frames, lines.
The kitchen in the last photograph is painted anthracite RAL 7016 - matt, handleless. A finish like this lasts 15 to 20 years.
Matt or gloss: what the choice depends on
There are three questions: how much daylight reaches the room, how dark a tone you are taking, and how often the kitchen is used.
A light kitchen with a single window gains light from gloss. For a dark tone people take matt: it holds the colour evenly and does not glare in the sun. And where cooking happens every day, Fenix and laminate take the fingerprint question off the table.
All front materials on one page
Matt and gloss in your own kitchen light
A photograph holds one light — the one that was there when the picture was taken. Matt and gloss in the same tone part ways exactly in light: where the sheen falls, and how the tone reads by the window in the morning and under a lamp in the evening. In the showroom both surfaces stand under the same light, and the comparison takes a minute. Tell us which way your kitchen window faces — that is where the choice begins.