Full-Access European Cabinetry Comes to America Part 2: American Style or “Framed” Construction?
In the world of custom cabinetry, what is best for me? Face Frame or Full Access?
In the first post of this series, I stressed that, although it is helpful to have an aspiring vision of what you’re looking for in a design, you should not select custom cabinets merely on their looks, but also on the quality of construction. In this edition of ‘Full-Access European Cabinetry Comes to America’, we continue the discussion by diving into the first of the two types of cabinet construction and the type that most here in the U.S. are familiar with,
American Style or “Framed” Construction.
Face frame cabinets use solid wood joinery at the front of the cabinet to form, as the name suggests, a face frame around the front of the cabinet while frameless cabinets don't. You can usually tell the difference between face fame cabinetry and full access cabinetry ‘which I will feature in the next and final post of this series’ by the way the doors and drawers fit against the front.
With the framed cabinet image generously provided by NKBA Image Gallery, you see a mixture of frame and door/drawer front, with wide reveals (or gaps) between each door/drawer front. This is called a frame-overlay style. When the doors of the cabinet are closed you can still see the cabinet face frames around the doors and drawer fronts and you can often see the hinges as well.
Framed cabinetry is most likely the one you will feel familiar with as it has been the standard style in America for several decades. This is due to the fact that framed cabinetry was made widely available by big manufacturers who generally produce face frame cabinets and distribute in various places to buy cabinetry including big-box home centers.
Made typically with a plywood or particle board box that is held together by a hardwood frame attached to the front, framed cabinetry is identified by the spaces between the doors and drawers where the frame is visible.
The interior of the cabinet is wider on both sides than the cabinet opening. The face frame usually extends into the opening about 3/4" or more. Even though the prevalence of full-access cabinetry is increasingly featured in style and design publications, framed cabinets are still the choice-of-comfort in the United States representing “about two-thirds” of cabinet purchases.
Coming next, learn why European Full-Access Cabinetry is the ‘air-inevitable’ to becoming the new standard for fine kitchen cabinetry construction in both old world traditional classics as well as the sleeker, clean-lined contemporary kitchen cabinets.
I look forward to your comments and questions.
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