Do face frames add much to a cabinet?

[Mike Byrne]

Hi, I have had a read of many of the kitchen cabinet posts, but haven't really found the answer to my question. My wife likes the look of the cabinets without frames, i.e. plain flat doors and drawers in Ikea style cabinets, however I am a bit worried that these will fall apart too easily. The plan is to have base units only, I have had a read of Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinets where they are a kind of combo European plus face frame style, and some other bits and pieces on cabinets, and it looks to me that the face frame would add a lot of strength. However, I don't like the look of them so much. I plan to build in melamine or ply, again it's melamine for the look my wife likes but ply for the better strength. So, can anyone share their experiences with both kinds of cabinet, please?

Thank you in anticipation.

[Ken Darga]

Mike,

I'm with you---my choice is a face-frame construction.

The doors/drawers, that fit inside the opening of the unit, is referred to as European style.

The frame, box or the like, needs to be made "VERY" accurate, so the gaps around the drawer/door front is even.  Precison cuts and joints need to be exact.

A slight out-of-adjustment, the gaps are very noticable---soem joints will be wide gaps, and others will have interference.

It can be a real pain, to get everything fine tuned and shimmed, so all the gaps are even and you have nice straight and even lines.

The objects you see at Ikea, may look nice on display, but...

get it home---

you do the assembly---

and fine tune it---

that's when ''the-fight-starts".

The cabinets need to be squared up perfectly on the walls and floor.

Most structures are not square, plumb or level.

I've found some walls off by 1/2" in some home construction---

YIKES!

Have a wheel barrow size supply of wedge shims handy.

With a face frame design, it's more forgiving.

The doors/drawers fronts fit over the face frame.

If a drawer/door is slightly off, it's not noticable.

Adjustments can be easily make.

MDF is more stable over plywood.

Plywood warps.

MDF is suitable and can be used for the sides, back and bottom.

MDF exposed edges and surfaces, need to be sealed and painted.

When building cabinets from plywood, use cabinet grade material.

Wood can be stained.

Hardwood is the peferred for face frames of cabinet boxes and door/drawer fronts.

[Ken Darga]

PS

Home Depot offers cabinetry, that is comparable to the IKEA priced cabinetry.

It's offered in face-frame construction.  

The face frames are hardwood.

Box construction is offered in MDF (less expensive), and cabinet grade plywood.

The construction and joinery is pretty good---

the cabinets are completely assembled---

and ready to install.

Lowes may offer something similar.

[Jay Boutwell]

 Hi Mike, cabinets are like many other things.  They are  built in many different styles but usually serve the same purpose from the simple method to the modified and custom method of storing and protecting items.

 The style depends on several factors as to style of the home and how the cabinets will be used.  Some are designed to accent the home and others to blend into the home.  It is all a matter of preference like a piece of furniture.  

 Face framed cabinets were the standard style for many years beginning before the birth of this country.  It was after War II that the European cabinet style was introduced and became so popular.   This was due to the massive amount of destruction from the war in Europe and the need to rapidly rebuild the country that the European cabinet was widely used.  It was cheaper to build and could easily be massed produced.  It used to be that cabinets were build as a custom cabinet with most of them being built to fit the actual space.  The European cabinet were massed produced as a simple box with a flat door and pin bored inside for shelves.  They were build in standard sizes  such as  36, 34, 32,  inches and smaller but all being the same as they used jigs to cut and assemble the cabinet boxes.  There were odd sizes like a 35 or a 31 inch wide cabinet.  Also in Europe the cabinets are often moved from house to house just like furniture.  This is where the "French Cleat" hanging system became so popular.

 

Just like the style of cabinets there are many choices of materials and methods of building them. 

I will try to explain the "pros"  and the "cons" of the styles and materials

 

Face framed cabinets are stronger in construction due to the added structure of the face frame. They can be ugly or very attractive.  This depends on the cabinet maker.  I have seen many face framed cabinets that have both the stiles and rails so wide that they are ridiculous.  These are often the mass produced one where speed in the common dominator.  It is done to cut down on the amount of time it takes to build the face frame.  The more pieces in the face frame the more time it takes to cut and assemble the frame.  A true custom cabinet will be made where the cabinet maker in interested in the total look of the finished product.  He or she will want to have as much storage as possible and the access to get to stored items as easy as possible.  Often times you will see almost as much face frame as you do doors and drawers.

 

The choice of material is also a factor to consider.  Cabinet grade ply woods are the choice of a true custom cabinet as it is stable and holds screws, glues and other fasteners well.  They take stains well and can be painted should that be the choice.  Plywood is more expensive.  It is much lighter and easier to hang from the walls and especially the upper cabinets.  

Melamine can be used if it is not wish to have the stain grade type of cabinet and prefers the slick interior and exterior of the cabinets that are exposed  to  the eye.  Melamine is much heavier but less expensive.  It does not hold screws as well as plywood and does not glue up as well unless you use a glue made for melamine gluing like "ROO GLUE".  Melamine is easier to clean and is something to consider. 

 

 Cabinets are made using a hardwood face frame, doors, and drawer fronts but have the melamine cabinet boxes.  They have the traditional hinge system where face frame hinges are used or can be fitted with European hinges.  Either traditional overlay doors and drawer fronts can be made or they can be also build using the inset style door and drawer method

All thought both melamine and ply wood both have their inherent issues with water, Melamine in more likely to be damaged by water even when sealed. 

 

In the true European design they are frame less.  The construction differs in how they are built as the style requires the use of European hinges for hanging the doors and have less overlay of the doors.  Most are fitted with doors that are also a slab style that has the raw edges covered with a melamine tape.  The raw edges of the cabinet boxes are also usually sealed with melamine tape.

There are exception to this as they can also be built using a hard wood strip on the face of the melamine cabinet  box panels and the common slab doors made of melamine can also be wrapped with hardwood.  You can also use a hardwood door but unless you use the hardwood strip on the panel it does not look as good.

 

I have built both for many years and have used the combinations of both styles with out difficulty.  If I have my preference I would go for the full wood cabinet as there is a lot more that I can do to it to change its appearance in a kitchen.  For instance you if you had a glass panel door on a melamine cabinet you see the melamine color which is usually white or almond.   With the wood cabinet box you have a stain wood appearance.

With a melamine cabinet you have to settle for the melamine color or cover it with wood panels to get the looks you want.

 

To sum it up it comes down to the choice of the final appearance the person wants. Both have their pros and cons and as with all things the life expectancy is dependent on it enviroment as well.   The last set of cabinets that I posted are melamine boxes with clear coated red oak face frames that are cut down to 1" wide on most of the face frames.  The doors are flat melamine slabs with a red oak band and a red oak molding that I applied to the top of the doors.  The hinges are European.  The drawer boxes are wood with melamine fronts that are banded with hardwood and a matching molding applied to the top.

 

Not my favorite choice for cabinet building but is what the customer wanted as they were interested in the white clean look of melamine.  The white melamine was overpowering to view so the customer elected to take my suggestion and use a hardwood on the faces. 

Something to remember that wood can always be cut and modified where as melamine is pretty much non modifiable  due to its inherent nature of being a non solid wood. 

 Good luck and if I can be of addition need, feel free to contact me.

[Jay Boutwell]

My big objection to the store bought cabinets besides having to rebuild many, Is that they are all pretty much a standard size and in order to build your kitchen with them you are forced to install filler strips which wastes valuable storage space.   Another is the method used in door construction as most are ill fitted and the wood grains are poorly matched so you get a clash of colors in the door and drawer faces.  Some are so bad they appear to be a stripped zebra.  They are all of the same style and what you get at one home, multiple copies are found  maybe as close as next door. 

A guy is far better off to build his own cabinets.  That way they fit the home without a truck load of filler sticks and railroad ties for shims to install.  Just like some like the ones I have had experience with.  I have had the misfortune of having to install some several times in homes build in a development area where the contractor has purchase a lot from a cabinet manufacture company for installation in the new homes.  I have found some that were so poorly made that were so called top of the line custom cabinets costing several thousand dollars that I had to rebuild some. 

It used to be a sport of mine to visit cabinet show rooms and look at the cabinets they have on display and pretty soon you will have the sales people trying to sell me on how good they were.  After a while when I got all the sales pitch, I would pick the cabinet apart and hand them a business card and leave.  Take it from me, you don't get what you are promised by the sales department nor is the product what they say it is.  There is world of difference between actual wood and a wood product.  Look close and you might find camouflaged duck tape on some of the interiors.  Sure they will tell you how good the drawers are and always pick the subject of drawer construction.  Take a look at some and you can see through the dovetail joinery.  The drawer bottoms are often flimsy even down to being like hardboard.  Look at the door panels do they rattle when closed and do the move within the rails and stiles.   Look at the hinges are they actual steel or pot metal. look at the drawer slides are they well fitted and close the drawer all the way.   The new sales pitch is the self close features in drawers and doors.  These features are expensive so in order to be competitive the have also cut down on the quality of the cabinets build.  Such as joinery of the boxes.  If you were to take one apart don't be surprised to find twice the number of pin nails and staples with starved glue joints as you will actual screws.

You might find a cabinet with a few dowel joints but a dowel joint server no purpose other that an alinment pin if it is starved from glue.
 
Ken Darga said:

PS

Home Depot offers cabinetry, that is comparable to the IKEA priced cabinetry.

It's offered in face-frame construction.  

The face frames are hardwood.

Box construction is offered in MDF (less expensive), and cabinet grade plywood.

The construction and joinery is pretty good---

the cabinets are completely assembled---

and ready to install.

Lowes may offer something similar.

[Rick]

Jay, one advantage of face frame is the 3/16 overhang on the faces, which helps if the wall is not straight.  Since I have never done frameless, is that really an advantage or not?

Jay Boutwell said:

Just like the style of cabinets there are many choices of materials and methods of building them. 

I will try to explain the "pros"  and the "cons" of the styles and materials

 

[Jay Boutwell]

Rick, on face frame cabinets or even frameless cabinets the first cabinet in the run would be the end wall. In hanging either one it must be plumb and level or the total run will be out of level and plumb  In a frameless or a face frame cabinet it has to be set out at least one inch from the side wall so that the door will open.  If the door has hard ware like a knob or pull it must also allow the door to open at least a 90 degrees to the cabinet face.   I normally use a 1 1/2 "filler or when I build the cabinets I will give the cabinet that goes against the wall a scribe stile  in which I scribe and fit to the wall. try to  The cabinets needs to have the doors swing towards the wall other wise you will be opening the cabinet towards you which forces you to move around the door in order to easily access the cabinet.  The remainder of the cabinets are then set plumb and level off this cabinet.  In some cases especially when you get the hanging the upper cabinet and wall tilts outward from the cabinet more than what you can hide with the scribe stile, then I will make a back bevel and apply this to the scribed stile to hide the gap.  If the frameless cabinet does not have a scribe filler installed then I will cut one and add it.

This is why a person needs to check all the walls for being square and plumb and be sure to include the floor.  With information you can then determine the method of hanging the cabinets.   The advantage to knowing all the information allows you to know if you will have to modify the toe kick by cutting it to fit a rise in the floor and based on this you will be able to determine if you have to shim up some of the cabinets.   You also have to be sure that what alternations you have to do to any of the cabinets that you will still fall within the specified cabinet height.   On some of the real bad installs I have had to cut some cabinet down on the toe kicks and even go as far as adding fillers to the top of some of the cabinets to keep the counter top in its proper height.  it is almost a magical act to install some cabinets in some situations.  This is what make ready made cabinets such a night mare in some installs.  You have to alter what is made and at least when building them you have an opportunity to build it to fit and work around the defects in the walls and floors.  You can do such tricks as setting the cabinet back inward to avoid humps in the wall and it is hidden from view without altering the wall.  The same goes for the end of a cabinet that will not set against the wall or has a un-plumb wall where there is a large gap between the cabinet end and the wall.  In this instance you can do one of two things like build a panel to cover the end or make the end like a scribe panel.   If building a panel to attach to the end then you need to shorten one of the cabinets length to make up for the added panel.

Another good idea if  you get to design the cabinet layout try to put a drawer bank against the end walls.  It is easier to deal with as you can get the cabinet closer to the wall since it is a drawer and you only need to have enough to get the cabinet box in, as the drawers faces should not extend past the cabinet box.   Makes life more fun that way.  
 
Rick said:

Jay, one advantage of face frame is the 3/16 overhang on the faces, which helps if the wall is not straight.  Since I have never done frameless, is that really an advantage or not?

Jay Boutwell said:

Just like the style of cabinets there are many choices of materials and methods of building them. 

I will try to explain the "pros"  and the "cons" of the styles and materials

 

[Mike Byrne]

Thank you both for the information. The main wall of the kitchen is curved, so any pre-built cabinets are out of the question, plus I don't think there is much available in Guatemala where my house is. I made some measurements last summer and have a plan to build a flat half wall under the windows to straighten things up, but it will still require some cut off corners at each end. I will be "on-site" in about four days, to see if my plan will work or not, fingers crossed. I am also not 100% on what standard of materials I can actually get where we live, just that there is plywood, mdf and melamine. Many houses actually have concrete kitchens (yeech), and the carpenter built ones are mainly solid wood, pine for cheaper ones and ceder for the expensive versions, with another wood called palo blanco somewhere in between.