Kitchen Cabinet Shoppers Guide
Framed vs Euro-styleFull, Overlay vs Traditional, Solid wood vs veneer on MDF

Just a quick break down of the more popular types of Kitchen and Bath Cabinets (their construction and cabinet door specs) Kitchen Cabinet Shoppers Guide Cabinet Box (Carcass) Basically, (in the U.S.) there are two types of modular cabinet box construction. Face Framed and Frameless. The frameless (also called euro style) is constructed so that the cabinet door hinges are attached directly to the side wall of the cabinet box. The doors and drawer fronts are almost touching each other. When the complete kitchen has been installed, you will see very little cabinet box….only doors and drawers showing from the front. This gives a clean contemporary look. Frameless cabinets can be found at the lowest end of the scale and the ultra high end. The majority of the cabinets sold here use a framed or traditional box. A lighter gauge box is used but has an added face frame attached for looks and to hold the cabinet “square”. The cabinet door is hinged on the face frame rather than the side panel of the box. This allows a slightly smaller door while still showing a finished face. When looking at a completed kitchen using framed cabinets, you may notice a busier, more intricate look. A popular trend today is to use a “full overlay” door on a face framed box to get the “Contemporary” look along with the framed sturdiness and reliability. Because of the changes in the average kitchen’s humidity levels, the box is usually made from a material that can “breath” or adjusts with temperature and moisture changes. Rarely made from solid wood as larger wood spans tend to warp. The “carcass” is typically made from plywood, particleboard, flake board, or fiberboard. These “Engineered Woods” are used because they are extremely sturdy and warp resistant. Cabinet Doors (and drawer fronts) The Cabinet Doors and Drawer fronts are available in a wide variety of materials, profiles and colors/finishes. Plastic or polymer doors are (mostly found in outdoor or marine uses) and the metal or stainless steel doors are also relatively expensive for use in the average kitchen. Mica or laminate doors are usually a particle board core covered with a (glued on) plastic “skin”. Laminate doors are often seen on the lower end of the cabinet price range. Thermo foil doors involve a vacuum formed process where a plastic faced film is laminated to a molded or routed profile (MDF) door core. This is a fairly durable “skin” often seen in white or off white but also found with a wide selection of wood grain or colored patterns. Wood framed doors are typically constructed using stiles and rails to frame a center panel. The outer frame is usually joined together with either miter cut / biscuit joints or mortise and tennon joinery. While the outer door frame is almost always made of solid wood, the center panel in a 5 piece wood framed door can be a matching veneer on MDF or fiber board substrate or a laminated solid wood strips. I rarely see a solid slab center core because of the warp factors. The five piece door construction allows the center panel to “float” inside the door frame rather than gluing or pinning the door into a single rigid piece. This “floating panel” system allows the door to breathe or adjust to temperature / humidity changes ….to resist splitting or warping. Wood Framed Doors are sometimes “inset” into the face frame. This is where the door is mounted inside the face frame so that the door face is flush with the box face. Inset doors are usually found at the upper end of the cabinet price ranges. Beyond the standard flat panel and raised panel features you will likely find a wide range door frames: Shaker, applied moldings, decorative inlay, bead groove, ogee edge and waterfalls. Full Overlay Doors versus Traditional or Modified Overlay. Generally speaking, most of the cost of a single cabinet will be in the door(s). If all other factors are equal, you will find that the full overlay doors cost slightly more than the traditional. Not only is the full overlay door slightly larger (and heavier) but may (in certain applications) require specialized hinges and will almost always require the addition of knobs or pulls. The traditional overlay doors may have “finger slots” routed into the door frames or a beveled frame edges that would make additional knobs or pulls totally optional. This is by no means a complete description of all cabinetry, but are only a few basic points that will hopefully help you in your decision making process or at least make you a more knowledgeable shopper. By Granger Davis President, Alert Data, Inc www.adisupply.com