Alder it is!

After much trial and testing wood samples, we have decided on Red Alder for our new kitchen cabinets.

Our old cabinets are maple and we wanted something different.  We tried 4 or 5 different stains on both Cherry and Alder.   A soft, relatively low-strength, straight-grained, even-textured wood. Works well with hand and machine tools, but sharp cutting edges need to be maintained to prevent tearing the grain. The wood is rarely wider than 6 due to the small size of the trees. A relatively small tree, reaching about 50ft in height and producing a trunk in diameter up to 15''. The tree grows in Pacific Coast of North America. Alder also does not darken over time as much as other wood species.