Here is Your Style Guide to Kitchen Cabinets

Let’s start with the basics: What types of kitchen cabinets are there?

Kitchen cabinets fall into three broad categories:

• Under-the-counter, aka base cabinets
• Wall-mounted cabinets
• Pantry cabinets

The most popular are the base and wall-mounted cabinets. The wall-mounted ones utilize the space on your kitchen walls, and the base cabinets go under the countertop and kitchen island.

Pantry cabinets are specially designed for storing food. They are an excellent choice for kitchen designs that do not include a pantry. Typically, these cabinets are tall and wide as they are supposed to provide enough space to store food. But a custom cabinetry professional can design a pantry to fit whatever space you have.

After deciding the type of cabinet, you want, the next step is picking a cabinet style. The cabinet style mostly refers to the door design, since the door is the part of the cabinet that is most visible.

The architectural design of your kitchen is one of the main factors to consider when choosing kitchen cabinets. Ideally, there are three types of kitchen designs; traditional, contemporary, and transitional (a mix of the other two).

Contemporary designs are minimalistic, sleek, feature dark colors, and use artificial materials such as steel and glass. On the other hand, traditional designs are more colorful and use natural materials such as wood, marble, and granite.

All the cabinet styles your online search revealed fall into the following main categories:

• Arched cathedral: The door resembles an arched window. This style is best for cabinets high up the wall and tends to suit traditional kitchens.
• Flat-panel: All the panels are flat, not raised, or contoured, offering a sleek and clean look. This style is minimalistic but suits all kitchen designs.
• Mission: This style resembles the flat panel because all the panels look the same. However, they are made of visually attractive wood such as maple and red oak seasoned with a luxurious finish that highlights the wood grain. They are also modestly ornamented with angular shapes.

• Raised panel: This traditional cabinet style has a slightly raised and artistically grooved middle panel.
• Beaded: The panels have decorative detail, often made by grooving, which looks like stripes.
• Glass inset: The door is made of clear glass, making the contents of the cabinet are visible even when closed. This cabinet style is not suitable if you are disorganized.
• Slab: A slab cabinet does not have panels or frames, only a solid finger-ledge or push-to-open door with no ornamentation. This style is standard for base cabinets. It is minimalistic and complements the contemporary kitchen design.
• Shaker: This style resembles mission cabinets, but it is more minimalistic. Typically, they have a five-piece panel, where the middle panel is recessed.

The construction is also a crucial factor in the design and style of a kitchen cabinet. There are two construction types for kitchen cabinets: framed and frameless.

These cabinets have a supporting structure placed in front of the cabinet’s interior and a center stile.

There are three types of doors for framed cabinets:

• Inset: meaning the door is inside the frame
• Overlay: where the door covers the frame
• Semi-overlay: the door reveals part of the frame

Mostly, the frame is used to support multiple-paneled doors, raised panels, and other decorative details. Framed cabinets, especially with semi-overlay or in-set doors, complement the traditional kitchen design.

Conventionally, kitchen cabinets have doors. However, drawers maximize storage, promote the organization, and provide easier access to stored items.

Drawers are a good option for base cabinets. You can install drawers with a slide-out track system to eliminate the inconvenience of bending to open a drawer.

If you are worried about the aesthetics, you can hide the drawers with cabinet doors.

Cabinet doors provide privacy and also play an aesthetic role. But if those two factors are non-issues, you can install open shelves.

Cabinet frames and doors take up space. So, if you have a small kitchen, you can maximize usable space using open shelving. Additionally, open shelves are cheaper.

You can combine open shelving with the normal cabinets. For instance, you could have an open shelf above the cooking area to store ingredients you need to quickly access while cooking.  Or, have one open shelf on a highly visible area to display your cookbooks and rarely-used and prestigious utensils.

Accessories are another consideration when figuring out your kitchen cabinet design. Accessories, or add-ons, can help you maximize storage without compromising on style.

Drawer organizers, spice racks, cabinet wine racks, built-in towel storage, under-cabinet pull-downs, and roll-out cabinet trays are all accessories that will help you improve functionality and organization. You can even have a built-in trash can in one of the cabinets below your sink. Expert custom kitchen cabinetry contractors can install an electronic roll-out trash can.

The possibilities with cabinet accessories are limitless. Whatever add-on you would like, an experienced custom kitchens contractor will provide.