Kitchen cabinets are the built-in furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 installed in many kitchens for storage of food

Food

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

, cooking equipment, and often silverware

Silver (household)

Household silver or silverware includes dishware, cutlery and other household items made of sterling, Britannia or Sheffield plate silver. The term is often extended to items made of stainless steel...

 and dishes for table service. Appliance

Home appliance

Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. Home appliances can be classified into:*Major appliances, or White goods*Small appliances, or Brown goods...

s such as refrigerator

Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...

s, dishwasher

Dishwasher

A dishwasher is a mechanical device for cleaning dishes and eating utensils. Dishwashers can be found in restaurants and private homes.Unlike manual dishwashing, which relies largely on physical scrubbing to remove soiling, the mechanical dishwasher cleans by spraying hot water, typically between ...

s, and oven

Oven

An oven is a thermally insulated chamber used for the heating, baking or drying of a substance. It is most commonly used for cooking. Kilns, and furnaces are special-purpose ovens...

s are often integrated into kitchen cabinetry. There are many options for cabinets today.

History

As commonly used today, the term kitchen cabinet denotes a built-in installation in which a single counter covers multiple cabinets and neither wall nor floor is generally accessible behind or under the cabinet. Kitchen cabinets per se were invented in the 20th century. A precursor, not built-in, was the Hoosier cabinet

Hoosier cabinet

A Hoosier cabinet is a type of cupboard popular in the first decades of the 20th century. Named after the Hoosier Manufacturing Co. of New Castle, Indiana, they were also made by several other companies, most also located in Indiana....

 of the 1910s, a single piece of furniture incorporating storage and work surfaces, of which over 2 million were sold by 1920.

• Pre-WW-I cabinet design. Typical kitchens before World War I used freestanding work tables and a pantry
  Pantry
  A pantry is a room where food, provisions or dishes are stored and served in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen. The derivation of the word is from the same source as the Old French term paneterie; that is from pain, the French form of the Latin panis for bread.In a late medieval hall, there were...
  
   for dry storage. Cupboard
  Cupboard
  A cupboard or press is a type of cabinet, often made of wood, used indoors to store household objects such as food, crockery, textiles and liquor, and protect them from dust,vermin and dirt....
  
  s were sometimes used in kitchens, though in larger houses dishes were more typically stored in the dining room
  Dining room
  A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...
  
   or butler's pantry. Perishable foods such as milk, meat, and vegetables were purchased daily.

• Post-WW-II industrial era. Increasing interest in household efficiency led, in the 1920s, to pioneering motion studies of housework by industrial psychologist Lillian Moller Gilbreth
  Lillian Moller Gilbreth
  Lillian Moller Gilbreth was an American psychologist and industrial engineer. One of the first working female engineers holding a Ph.D., she is arguably the first true industrial/organizational psychologist. She and her husband Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr...
  
  . Improvements in kitchen design led to today's familiar built-in cabinetry. At the time, surfaces were linoleum
  Linoleum
  Linoleum is a floor covering made from renewable materials such as solidified linseed oil , pine rosin, ground cork dust, wood flour, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most commonly on a burlap or canvas backing; pigments are often added to the materials.The finest linoleum floors,...
  
   or stainless steel
  Stainless steel
  In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
  
  . Improved technology made industrial-scale cabinet production possible.

• Post-WW-II cabinet design. In the U.S.
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
  , countertops of high-pressure laminates such as Formica
  Formica
  Formica is a genus of ants of the family Formicidae, commonly known as wood ants, mound ants, or field ants. Formica is the type genus of the Formicidae, and of the subfamily Formicinae...
  
   became popular. Laminates led to the adoption of a seamless flush-surface kitchen look that is almost universal today, though laminates themselves are giving way to solid surface materials including stone. In Europe, built-in cabinets had also been pioneered in the 1920s. With improved materials, the frameless cabinet style, appealing for its architectural minimalism reminiscent of Bauhaus
  Bauhaus
  ', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
  
   design, emerged in European kitchen design, and elements have now been widely adopted worldwide.

• Post-modern cabinet design trends. Other elements of kitchen design affect the choice of cabinetry as follows. In post-modern kitchens, hardwood floors are increasingly installed, earth tones are in greater use for painted surfaces, and wallpaper is less favored. Various trends include the introduction of more expensive options, a larger number of ovens, the use of thicker solid countertops [2–3 in (5.1–7.6 )], taller base cabinets, "quartz" countertops, honed finishes, taller countertop appliances, undercounter lighting, and higher [e.g., 9 feet (2.7 m)] ceilings. While not all are kitchen cabinet trends per se, they all affect the choice and design of cabinetry. Space-saving features are especially important in condos, townhouses, and smaller homes.

• Kitchens today. Modern kitchen design has improved partly as a result of ergonomic research. Functionality is important; one research study had "anthropological scientists" observing homeowners "interact" with their kitchen cabinets. Kitchens are larger and have more cabinets; some kitchens may have as many as fifty drawers and cabinet doors. New features today include deep drawers for cookware, pull-out shelves to avoid excess bending, sponge trays on the front of sink cabinets, pullout hideaway garbage/recycling containers, pull-out spice cabinets, lazy susan
  Lazy Susan
  A Lazy Susan is a rotating tray, usually circular, placed on top of a table to aid in moving food on a large table or countertop.- Origin :The term "Lazy Susan" made its first written appearance in a Good Housekeeping article in 1906, although their existence dates back to the 18th century...
  
  s in corner cabinets, vertical storage for cookie sheets, full-extension drawer slides, and drawers and doors with so-called soft-close/positive-close mechanisms enabling drawers to shut quietly, or which shut fully after being pushed only partially. As the housing stock gets older, many homeowners face problems with visually unappealing older kitchen cabinets; in such situations, there is a choice to buy new (most expensive), reface existing (less expensive), or strip and refinish existing (least expensive—if done by the homeowner) cabinets. In 2009, there is more emphasis on cabinets designed with environmental factors in mind. So-called "green cabinets" are becoming more popular. As homes are becoming more airtight to save on heating and cooling costs, sometimes air quality can suffer, and gases which are released from resins as they cure. Resins, organic materials which convert from liquid to solid form, are used to manufacture engineered wood (e.g., particleboard) frequently used to build kitchen cabinet carcases can be a factor. According to a recent report:

Considering Americans spend 90% of their lives indoors, it’s clear why this is a key issue in designing healthy spaces. Additionally, air quality is not a stand-alone issue; rather, every other component of the home can have an impact on overall air quality. Air quality can be compromised by off-gassing from cabinetry, countertops, flooring, wall coverings or fabrics; by cooking by-products released into the air, or by mold caused by excess moisture or poor ventilation.

Cabinet wood choices

Cabinets consist of six-sided wooden boxes or "carcases" closed on five sides with a door on the sixth.

• Cabinet faces. Solid wood
  Wood
  Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
  
   is an effective choice for cabinet parts seen by people such as face frames, doors, drawer fronts, and so forth. Traditional-style solid-wood cabinetry remains popular, but consumers may compromise to achieve better value for the dollar. Among solid wood choices used for cabinet doors, cherry is more expensive than maple or oak in most cases. Solid wood is more expensive than plywood
  Plywood
  Plywood is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, re-usable, and can usually be locally manufactured...
  
   which, in turn, is more expensive than particle board
  Particle board
  Particle board, or particleboard , is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood particles, such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even saw dust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded...
  
   or similar sheet goods.

• Cabinet body. The cabinet carcase is usually made from plywood
  Plywood
  Plywood is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, re-usable, and can usually be locally manufactured...
  
   or high-quality particle board
  Particle board
  Particle board, or particleboard , is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood particles, such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even saw dust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded...
  
  , particularly for those flat sections which don't need to be shaped, such as shelves, cabinet sides, or drawer bottoms. Typical plywood thickness in these applications varies from 3/8 in to 3/4 in [with 1/4 in used often for drawer bottoms]. Stiffness and strength are important factors since cabinets are expected not to bend or sag and be able to support a heavy load. The best choices for strength are plywood and higher-quality particle board. Stiffness increases rapidly with shelf thickness; regardless of material choice, a 3/4 in shelf is 73% stiffer than a 5/8 in shelf, though only 20% thicker. Shelves made of some particle board formulations, especially where not reinforced, may sag or deform. Particle board strength and rigidity varies by formulation and is determined by the resin that binds together its wood particles. Plywood carcases are usually assembled with screws and nails while particle board carcases do not hold screws or nails as well and therefore frequently use glue, groove joints, or mechanical fasteners such as confirmat-cam assemblies. Generally, plywood-carcase cabinets are more expensive than particle-board-carcase cabinets.

• Cabinet frames and doors may be fashioned from solid wood
  Solid wood
  Solid wood is a term most commonly used to distinguish between ordinary lumber and engineered wood, but it also refers to structures that do not have hollow spaces. Engineered wood products are manufactured by binding together wood strands, fibers, or veneers with adhesives to form a composite...
  
   (typically a species of hardwood
  Hardwood
  Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...
  
  ), medium density fiberboard
  Fiberboard
  Fiberboard is known as low density fiberboard is a type of engineered wood product that is made out of wood fibers. Types of fiberboard include particle board, medium-density fiberboard, and hardboard. Fiberboard is sometimes used as a synonym for particle board, but particle board usually refers...
  
   (MDF), particle board
  Particle board
  Particle board, or particleboard , is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood particles, such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even saw dust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded...
  
  , plywood
  Plywood
  Plywood is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, re-usable, and can usually be locally manufactured...
  
  , or a combination, and may include lamination of a surface coating over these core materials. A floating panel in a door could be hardwood
  Hardwood
  Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...
  
  -veneer
  Wood veneer
  In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm , that are typically glued onto core panels to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry...
  
   plywood
  Plywood
  Plywood is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, re-usable, and can usually be locally manufactured...
  
   captured within a solid wood or MDF frame. Solid wood and MDF can be edge-shaped, e.g., to round or pattern the edges of doors, drawer fronts, or face frames. Particle board, once manufactured, cannot be edge-shaped suitably. Plywood cannot be shaped without revealing its veneer core, often considered unsightly, though edge-shaped furniture-grade plywood with thin plies [ca. 1/16 in ] is considered attractive for limited uses. MDF, once shaped, can be coated conformally with flexible veneers such as thermofoil
  Thermofoil
  Thermofoil is a surface finish applied to cabinets by multiple manufacturers. It is a plastic material which is thermoformed to the profile of an underlying engineered-wood core such as medium-density fiberboard...
  
   or can be paint
  Paint
  Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...
  
  ed. It can also be covered with wood veneer
  Wood veneer
  In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm , that are typically glued onto core panels to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry...
  
   or high-pressure laminate
  Laminate
  A laminate is a material that can be constructed by uniting two or more layers of material together. The process of creating a laminate is lamination, which in common parlance refers to the placing of something between layers of plastic and gluing them with heat and/or pressure, usually with an...
  
   but only if the edge profile is square or approximately so (to within the veneer thickness). Today many cabinet doors and drawer fronts utilize an MDF core. Doors and drawer fronts may also be fashioned of particle board surfaced with high-pressure laminate
  Laminate
  A laminate is a material that can be constructed by uniting two or more layers of material together. The process of creating a laminate is lamination, which in common parlance refers to the placing of something between layers of plastic and gluing them with heat and/or pressure, usually with an...
  
  . Natural wood
  Wood
  Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
  
   offers its subtle combination of color, grain, pore pattern, variable absorption and smoothness of finish, and variation with viewing angle and lighting condition. The appearance of natural wood can only be achieved with solid wood components (wherever edges are shaped) or possibly veneer (where they are not); as already pointed out, the two approaches can be combined in a single cabinet. Various transparent grain-revealing finishes including shellac
  Shellac
  Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes , which are dissolved in ethyl alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish...
  
  , lacquer
  Lacquer
  In a general sense, lacquer is a somewhat imprecise term for a clear or coloured varnish that dries by solvent evaporation and often a curing process as well that produces a hard, durable finish, in any sheen level from ultra matte to high gloss and that can be further polished as required...
  
  , varnish
  Varnish
  Varnish is a transparent, hard, protective finish or film primarily used in wood finishing but also for other materials. Varnish is traditionally a combination of a drying oil, a resin, and a thinner or solvent. Varnish finishes are usually glossy but may be designed to produce satin or semi-gloss...
  
  , or polyurethane
  Polyurethane
  A polyurethane is any polymer composed of a chain of organic units joined by carbamate links. Polyurethane polymers are formed through step-growth polymerization, by reacting a monomer with another monomer in the presence of a catalyst.Polyurethanes are...
  
   have been devised. A built-up finish may optionally utilize diverse pigments, dyes, bleach
  Bleach
  Bleach refers to a number of chemicals that remove color, whiten, or disinfect, often via oxidation. Common chemical bleaches include household chlorine bleach , lye, oxygen bleach , and bleaching powder...
  
  es, glazes, or wood fillers that may highlight contrasting colorants. Finishes can be applied by brush or spray and may comprise many separately applied layers. Accordingly, finishes formulated by differing manufacturers do not, in general, exactly match. Distressing the wood cabinets is another finish application and is often done in conjunction with glazes, stains, paints or dyes. This process consists of adding manufactured imperfections to cabinet doors to give the wood cabinets an aged, distressed, old-world rustic appearance. Common techniques include creating wormholes, rasping, dings and dents and sanding through the wood and layers of finish unevenly.

• Trade-off: solid wood versus particle board. Solid wood and plywood are durable and strong, but are more costly and offer less dimensional stability at manufacture than particle board, another cost factor. For cabinets and surface finishes that may sustain damage during long use, serviceability is a consideration. In case of damage, solid wood can be repaired by a qualified furniture refinisher, other than the manufacturer, to achieve a perfect match to the surrounding finish. Veneered MDF and particle board components, if damaged, must be replaced by the manufacturer. If water reaches the core, particleboard especially will swell irreversibly (therefore it is never used in home sheathing applications, where oriented strand board OSB is used instead). Tolerances for the use of screw fasteners in particleboard are tighter than for solid wood or plywood, and screws often loosen over time if over-torqued. However, MDF and particle board are good choices where cabinets are well-constructed, will be cared-for, where service life is projected as intermediate, e.g., where the kitchen will be remodeled approximately every 15 years, or where the manufacturer can be relied upon to supply replacement components if needed.

Cabinet carcase

Cabinets may be either face-frame or frameless in construction. Each option provides features and drawbacks.

• Face-frame cabinets. Traditional cabinets are constructed using face frames which typically may consist of narrow strips of hardwood framing the cabinet box opening. Cabinet carcases were traditionally constructed with a separate face frame
  Face frame
  A face frame in cabinet making is the frame fixed to the front of a cabinet carcass which obscures the edges of the carcass and provides the fixing point for doors and other external hardware...
  
   until the introduction of modern engineered wood
  Engineered wood
  Engineered wood, also called composite wood, man-made wood, or manufactured board; includes a range of derivative wood products which are manufactured by binding the strands, particles, fibers, or veneers of wood, together with adhesives, to form composite materials...
  
   such as particle board
  Particle board
  Particle board, or particleboard , is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood particles, such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even saw dust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded...
  
   and medium-density fiberboard along with glues, hinge
  Hinge
  A hinge is a type of bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about a fixed axis of rotation. Hinges may be made of flexible material or of moving components...
  
  s and fasteners required to join them. A face frame ensures squareness of the cabinet front. It also increases rigidity and provides a mounting point for hinges. Face-frames confer an appearance of strength and durability, and face-frame cabinets retain popularity in the U.S. An important distinction to be made between modern (manufactured) and traditional custom-built face-frame cabinets relates to the catalog-selection of cabinet components entailed by mass-production. Original custom face-frame cabinets accommodated multiple sections (cavities) in a single carcase. But stock (or semi-custom) face-frame cabinets are constructed individually and joined during installation. As a result, modern face-frame cabinets differ in having significantly wider (double-width) stile materials overall after installation. Two 1+1/2 in stiles joined as adjacent cabinets result in, effectively, a 3 inches (76.2 mm) stile. Wide stiles can interfere with access to the cabinet interior. When base cabinets were typically shelved, this was not much of a drawback. But with base cabinets increasingly being fitted with trays and drawers (using modern hardware), the extra stile width results in significantly less access to the cabinet cavity space. This drawback does not pertain to custom face-frame cabinets.

• Custom. Custom face-frame cabinets offer more efficient use of space because double width stiles (see above) can be avoided.

• Frameless (full-access) cabinets. Frameless (a.k.a. "full-access") cabinets utilize the carcase side, top, and bottom panels to serve same functions as do face-frames in traditional cabinets. In general, frameless cabinets provide significantly better utilization of space than do face-frame cabinets. A preference for frameless cabinet design developed in 1950s and 1960s Europe following the devastation of World War II. A burgeoning market for reconstructed housing in Central Europe provided a fertile environment for introducing improved hinge and cabinet designs. Frameless cabinets rely on updated manufacturing methods that permit the production of modern cabinet hardware
  Builders hardware
  Builders' hardware, or just builders hardware, is a group of metal hardware specifically used for protection, decoration, and convenience in buildings. Building products do not make any part of a building, rather they support them and make them work. It usually supports fixtures like windows,...
  
   (hinges and slides) and engineered wood products (for strength, dimensional tolerance, and stability). The intent of the frameless design is to achieve a more streamlined appearance but also a more efficient use of space, a proliferation of well-designed moving components such as drawers, trays, and pull-out cabinets providing better access to interior components. Many benefits coming out of frameless cabinets have been applied to face-frame cabinets such as the proliferation of multiple drawers in base cabinets, the use of full-overlay doors, and the use of cup hinges. Accordingly much of the hardware used by U.S. cabinet manufacturers is imported from Europe.

Cabinet Details

• Door Mounting. For both face-frame and frameless kitchen cabinets, it is conventional for cabinet doors to overlay the cabinet carcase. Face-frame cabinets allow for various door mounting options. Traditional overlay doors do not abut, allowing a view of the face frame when the doors are closed. Full overlay cabinet doors fit closely so that they obscure the face frame when closed. A third less-conventional option for face-frame cabinets is to inset doors into, and flush with, the face frame (see below). Since frameless (see below) cabinet doors also fully overlay their carcases, the two types (frameless and full-overlay face-frame cabinets) have a similar installed appearance (when doors are closed), both may use European cup hinges, and both require decorative door and drawer pulls (since there is no room for fingers at the door or drawer edge when installed).

• Space-utilization. Since typical face-frames are 1+1/2 in wide and frameless side panels 3/4 in, access to the cabinet interior is 1+1/2 in wider for a typical frameless cabinet as compared to a face-frame cabinet. A 12 inches (304.8 mm) cabinet accommodates a 10 inches (254 mm) drawer in frameless construction or a 8+1/2 in drawer in framed construction. The 1+1/2 in difference is most significant for narrower face-frame cabinets. Hence, the nomenclature "full-access." Custom (higher-cost) face-frame cabinets, which use one 1+1/2 in stile
  Stile
  A stile is a structure which provides people a passage through or over a fence or boundary via steps, ladders, or narrow gaps. Stiles are often built in rural areas or along footpaths to allow access to an adjacent field or area separated by a fence, wall or hedge...
  
   to frame two cabinet openings, can also accommodate wider drawers comparable to frameless cabinets. Frameless wall-oven cabinetry further saves 3 inches (7.6 cm) of wall space as compared to the same wall-oven installed in a face-frame cabinet: Many, if not most, contemporary ovens (and other cabinet-front-mounted major appliances) have been designed with the space-utilization advantage of frameless cabinets installation in mind. The oven is dimensioned, and thermally insulated, to fit within an industry-standard external width [e.g., 27 or] cabinet cavity, less two standard 3/4 in cabinet side-wall thicknesses while providing for a small space between the oven box and the internal cabinet wall. In ovens, the bezel is sized to fit the full external cavity width and overlay the cabinet side wall. Such an installation avoids any unused lateral space around the oven. (While, hypothetically, ovens can be installed similarly in face-frame cabinets, such an installation may requires cutting away all but 3/4 in of each 1+1/2 in face-frame – specifically not recommended by vendors as it may weaken the joint between side-wall and face-frame – and buttressing face-frame cabinet side walls accordingly.)

• Wood options. Frameless cabinets, which exhibit a modern appearance in keeping with the design movement of "minimalism," are typically constructed of particle board
  Particle board
  Particle board, or particleboard , is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood particles, such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even saw dust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded...
  
  , which features a high degree of dimensional stability, adherence to dimensional standards, absence of warping (as supplied), and uniformity. Accordingly, the so-called European hinge includes a 35-mm-diameter cup press-fit to a bored recess particularly well-suited to particle board construction. By virtue of the 35-mm "European" cup design, European hinges avoid reliance on screws as a primary mechanism holding door to hinge. Plywood and/or solid wood can also be used in frameless cabinet construction, generally at higher cost.

• Hinge design features. Those European hinges intended for use with frameless cabinets afford a quick-release mechanism enabling a door to be removed and replaced without the use of tools. Such hinges typically afford six-way (three-axis) positional adjustment by screwdriver for door alignment. Some accommodate complex motions, e.g., to avoid interfering with interior cabinet components while fully overlaying the carcases (e.g., permitting the full-interior-cabinet-width dimensions for pull-out trays). Scissors-type articulating hinges support wide-angle non-interfering adjacent doors.

• Inset door face-frame cabinetry. A special, and unconventional, category of framed cabinets is represented by those with inset doors. An inset-mounted cabinet door is fitted to the frame just as would be an ordinary full-sized room door; such doors fit into a frame when closed. (Full-size doors do not simply cover the opening between rooms or at an entrance to a building.) Inset doors require more precise alignment of the doors to the frames. Further, this alignment must be maintained with use. Upon opening or closing, inset doors are gently braked by the air cushion trapped between the door and frame. This desirable feature is one hallmark of high-quality inset door construction. Frameless or full-overlay face-frame construction can superficially resemble inset construction when doors are designed to fit closely within a cavity formed by surrounding doors, drawers, and/or an adjacent countertop.

Cabinet doors

Cabinet doors may feature a variety of materials such as wood, metal, or glass. Wood may be solid wood ("breadboard" construction) or engineered wood, or may be mixed (e.g., engineered wood panel in a solid wood frame)

• Frames. In the U.S. solid wood frame and panel
  Frame and panel
  Frame and panel construction is a woodworking technique often used in the making of doors, wainscoting, and other decorative features for cabinets, furniture, and homes...
  
   construction, using either mortise and tenon
  Mortise and tenon
  The mortise and tenon joint has been used for thousands of years by woodworkers around the world to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at an angle of 90°. In its basic form it is both simple and strong. Although there are many joint variations, the basic mortise and tenon...
  
   or cope and stick
  Cope and stick
  Cope and stick construction is a frame and panel technique often used in the making of doors, wainscoting, and other decorative features for cabinets, furniture, and homes....
  
   jointed frames, is traditional, with maple, cherry, oak, birch, and hickory among the most commonly used species. Mortise-and-tenon frames, with their greater strength and permanence, are more costly to produce and less commonly used as compared to cope-and-stick frames. As an alternative, miter joint
  Miter joint
  A miter joint , sometimes shortened to miter, is a joint made by bevelling each of two parts to be joined, usually at a 45° angle, to form a corner, usually a 90° angle...
  
   frames, which may be identifiable by face-surface relief that follows continuously around the frame, have become popular. Miter-jointed frames typically employ embedded metal fasteners to secure frames elements (stiles and rails) cut at a 45° angle. Captured within frames, panels may be either solid or veneered engineered wood (either particle board or medium density fiberboard). Laminates, including those designed to resemble hardwood, can typically be identified by a more rounded appearance associated with the minimum bending radii necessarily entailed by the manufacturing process of applying laminate to an underlying substrate. By comparison solid surfaces, in particular solid hardwood, can be milled with more sharply defined corners, edges, or grooves on either a panel or frame.

• Panels. Panels used in frame-and-panel kitchen cabinet doors may be fashioned either of solid wood or covered by paint, veneer, or laminate in which case they are fashioned of engineered wood. The panels are typically not fastened with glue or nails but rather "float" within the frame to accommodate seasonal expansion or contraction of the wood frame.

• Solid-door construction. Doors may be fabricated of solid material, either engineered wood (particle board
  Particle board
  Particle board, or particleboard , is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood particles, such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even saw dust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded...
  
   or medium-density fiberboard, but not typically plywood
  Plywood
  Plywood is a type of manufactured timber made from thin sheets of wood veneer. It is one of the most widely used wood products. It is flexible, inexpensive, workable, re-usable, and can usually be locally manufactured...
  
  ) or solid wood. Engineered wood panels may either be used as slabs or may be shaped to resemble frame-and-panel construction. In either case, engineered wood panels are generally painted, veneered, or laminated. Solid wood panels are typically formed of multiple boards of the selected wood species, jointed together using glue and may either be painted or finished. Solid wood construction offers the possibility of refinishing in case of damage or wear.

• Decorative panels. Cabinet doors panels are used decoratively on cabinet sides, where exposed, for a more finished appearance.

• Glass door construction options.Doors may have glass windows constructed of muntins and mullions holding glass panels (as in exterior windows). Other designs either mimic the divided-light look of muntins and mullions with overlays, or may dispense with them altogether. Cabinets using glass doors sometimes use glass shelves and interior lighting from the top of a cabinet. A glass shelf allows light to reach throughout a cabinet. For a special display effect, the interior rear of a cabinet may be covered with a mirrors to further distribute light.

Drawers and trays

A functional design objective for cabinet interiors involves maximization of useful space and utility in the context of the kitchen workflow. Drawers and trays in lower cabinets permit access from above and avoid uncomfortable or painful crouching.

In face-frame construction, a drawer or tray must clear the face-frame stile and is 2 inches (5.1 cm) narrower than the available cabinet interior space. The loss of 2 inches is particularly noticeable and significant for kitchens including multiple narrow [15 inches (381 mm) or less] cabinets.

In frameless construction, drawer boxes may be sized nearly to the interior opening of the cabinet providing better use of the available space.

However, the same is not true for trays. Even in the case of frameless construction doors and their hinges when open block a portion of the interior cabinet width. Since trays are mounted behind the door, trays are typically significantly narrower than drawers. Special hinges are available that can permit trays of similar width as drawers but they have not come into wide use.

Shelves provide in all cases more storage space than drawers or trays, but are less accessible.

Wall oven cabinets

Stock wall-oven cabinets may be adapted to built-in ovens, coffee-makers, or other appliances by removing portions of the cabinet and adding trim panels to achieve a flush installation.

Frameless cabinets provide for wall oven front panel widths equal to the cabinet width (see above). In such an installation the oven front panel occupies a similar profile as a cabinet door. Accordingly, frameless installations for wall-oven make most efficient use of the available wall space in a kitchen.

This effect is difficult to achieve in typical face-frame cabinet installations, as it requires modification to the face-frame (essentially eliminating the face-frame at the oven cut-out).

Cabinet finishes

Cabinets may be finished with opaque paint

Paint

Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...

 or transparent finishes such as lacquer

Lacquer

In a general sense, lacquer is a somewhat imprecise term for a clear or coloured varnish that dries by solvent evaporation and often a curing process as well that produces a hard, durable finish, in any sheen level from ultra matte to high gloss and that can be further polished as required...

 or varnish

Varnish

Varnish is a transparent, hard, protective finish or film primarily used in wood finishing but also for other materials. Varnish is traditionally a combination of a drying oil, a resin, and a thinner or solvent. Varnish finishes are usually glossy but may be designed to produce satin or semi-gloss...

. Decorative finishes include distressing, glazing, and toning. The choice of finish can affect the cabinet's color, sheen (from satin to gloss), and feel.

• High pressure laminates or (HPL) are made from resin and paper components under high pressure; in contrast, ordinary wood does not sustain such pressures, and can be crushed to less than half its natural thickness in a hand operated arbor press. The high pressure squeezes the HPL to such a solid density that it becomes highly resistant to damage simply because any utensil or tool striking the HPL will not have a force greater than the force used to form the HPL itself. In effect, the HPL has been dented in advance. HPL can be decorated in any pattern and is applied using contact cement and pressed in place using a "J-roller." It is cut slightly larger than the panel on which it is to be installed and trimmed using a router-like laminate trimmer along the edge. It may also be filed to obtain the final edge. While HPL became prevalent in the twentieth century, since the 1970s the trend has been away from HPL in favor of wood.

• Melamine is a coating for furniture board panels in carcases. Its unique white-in-color chemical formulation helps prevent damage by chemicals and gives it impact resistance comparable to HPL. Melamine coated boards are widely available in home centers for purposes such as shelving.

• Thermofoil is a plastic coating laminate
  Laminate
  A laminate is a material that can be constructed by uniting two or more layers of material together. The process of creating a laminate is lamination, which in common parlance refers to the placing of something between layers of plastic and gluing them with heat and/or pressure, usually with an...
  
   applied to furniture-board. It is typically applied to boards which have been milled, shaped, or routed into a complex profile. While thermofoil can have a unique glossy sheen and have strength and impact resistance almost as much as HPL, it can't be repaired if damaged.

• Paint can be used over cabinets where desired. Paint is considered traditional. Many consider brush strokes in the finish to be attractive.

Cabinet hardware

Hardware is the term used for metal fittings incorporated into a cabinet extraneous of the wood or engineered wood substitute and the countertop. The most basic hardware consists of hinges and drawer/door pulls, although only hinges are an absolute necessity for a cabinet since pulls can be fashioned of wood or plastic, and drawer slides were traditionally fashioned of wood. In a modern kitchen it is highly unusual to use wood for a drawer slides owing to the much superior quality of metal drawer slides/sides.

Drawers and trays

Drawers and trays make it easier to access a cabinet's contents. They are a substantial benefit because they reduce bending and squatting. The only drawback is slightly less usable space which is taken up by the slides as well as door clearances. A typical drawer is 5 inches (12.7 cm) narrower than a comparable shelf. A drawer can usually hold about 75 to 100 lbs for ordinary use. Using slides, mounted on the side (reducing width slightly) or bottom (completely out of sight), a drawer or tray can be extended considerably with a smooth, linear motion using minimum effort.

Drawer extension is the exposed proportion of a fully extended drawer. Traditional drawers with wood-on-wood runners can only be extended about three-quarters; however, modern runners enable full-extension drawers. A slide's design parameters are its height, depth, extension, weight rating, durability, serviceability, and smoothness of operation. One new feature is soft-close buffering.

Specialty hardware

There is a large variety of specialty hardware for kitchen cabinets. Special hardware for corner and other blind cabinets makes their contents more easily accessible. They may be in the form of lazy susan

Lazy Susan

A Lazy Susan is a rotating tray, usually circular, placed on top of a table to aid in moving food on a large table or countertop.- Origin :The term "Lazy Susan" made its first written appearance in a Good Housekeeping article in 1906, although their existence dates back to the 18th century...

s with or without a wedge cut out or of tray slides which enable the hidden corner space to be occupied with trays that slide both laterally and forwards/backwards. Sponge drawers use special hinges that fit between the cabinet front and the sink.

Buying cabinets

Before buying cabinets, precise measurements are essential otherwise there may be empty unutilized space, cabinets may not fit, or there may be interference between a cabinet door or drawer and something else.

Buyers can buy pre-built "stock" cabinets for fast delivery which usually arrive in a week or less. In contrast, custom-made cabinets can have longer delivery times, such as four weeks.

• Base cabinets are usually 24 inches (61 cm) deep and 34+1/2 in high to accommodate a countertop surface normally 36 inches (91.4 cm) above the floor.

• Wall cabinets are usually 12 inches (30.5 cm) deep. Their heights are often 30 inches (76.2 cm), for example, if mounted to a soffit. In a kitchen with 8 feet (2.4 m) ceilings, a 36 inches (914.4 mm) wall cabinet will leave about 6 inches (15.2 cm) of space above the cabinet which can be covered with a crown molding; a full 42 inches (1,066.8 mm) wall cabinet will run straight to the top of the ceiling. Wall cabinets are sometimes called "upper cabinets." The distance from countertop to wall cabinet is usually 18 inches (45.7 cm), but this distance is sometimes less if there is undercabinet lighting. Cabinets can have an open top for displaying ornaments. Ceilings higher than 9 feet (2.7 m) can permit another level of cabinets.

Cabinet dimensions are specified with width first, height second, depth last. The width–height–depth is a generally accepted convention. A 18x36x12 cabinet is therefore 18 inches (45.7 cm) wide, 36 inches (91.4 cm) tall, and 12 inches (30.5 cm) deep. Sometimes upper cabinets are presumed to be 12 inches (30.5 cm) deep, so only the width and height are given. For example, a "W1836" label means wall-mounted cabinet [12 inches (30.5 cm) deep] is 18 inches (45.7 cm) wide and 36 inches (91.4 cm) high.

Custom cabinetry, while expensive, can fit the available space attractively, and can fit into walls which aren't exactly flat or straight. They can combine more than one opening and eliminate unsightly doubled stiles in face-frame installations as well as bring aesthetic appeal using unusual woods or finishes. Custom cabinets sometimes offer inset cabinet doors, and can match existing or period furniture styles. It's sometimes possible to mix custom and stock cabinetry which have identical finishes.

Cabinets can be purchased from specialty retailers, kitchen remodelers, home centers, on-line retailers, and ready-to-assemble furniture manufacturers. Some installers offer a package deal from measurement, to construction, to installation.

Cabinets are sometimes delivered in fully assembled form. Inspect carcases carefully before installation, since defects are difficult to repair after installation. Ready-to-assemble furniture cabinets are lower-in-cost and are delivered in a flat box. Some courses teach homeowners how to build their own cabinets.