Best wood & finish for open shelves in kitchen

[BizCoach]

We'll be putting up open shelves in our kitchen. We want them painted white with as little grain visible as possible and glossy so they're easy to clean. I'm looking at premium pine or poplar. Any suggestions about which wood is better and how to prep, seal etc before the final paint coat would be helpful.

The shelves will be 3/4 thick, approx 12 deep and we already have some decorative brackets that will hold the weight.

[JimD]

Poplar will definitely paint up better than pine. Pine tends to bleed through and shows grain much worse.

Prep and paint can be done many ways. If you used pine, it would be important to use a stain blocking primer. With poplar the primer is not nearly as important. My favorite is white finish is tinted resisthane over the related primer - both from Hood finishing. They can be brushed but dry so quickly it would be challenging. I spray. If you need to brush, I've been using Lowe's house brand primer/paint and am satisfied with the results. Latex takes a long time to get really hard, however. That is an advantage of Resisthane.

[atgcpaul]

I've had good success with Benjamin Moore Advance paint. Some people have good success with a brush but I've had best results with an Earlex HVLP sprayer. I know people have used it for shelves but not me--just kitchen face frames and doors/drawers.

So why not go with melamine shelves? I really think it is the ideal product for this application. You can already buy it in 12" widths, it's already white, is much more durable than a painted surface, is less expensive than poplar, and is easy to wipe clean.