All About Counter Cabinets

Cabinets make a room

Whether in the kitchen or the bathroom, wall and counter cabinets strongly influence if not dictate the design style and characteristic of the room.

They are like royalty holding court with their powerful lines and enviable storage possibilities.

Think what these rooms might be like without them. The items on all the shelves, in all the drawers, and rotating on lazy Susans would be strewn across the floor.

Take a moment and be thankful for wall and counter cabinets.

Counter cabinets especially hold a respected place in the kitchen and bathroom, for they support those coveted workspaces - countertops.

Beautiful cabinets for beautiful work surfaces

All those images of kitchen cabinets with granite countertops, designer maple kitchen cabinets with granite, or maybe a bright kitchen with white cabinets and black countertops, collect them in a binder. Make a wish book, even if out of your price range, for your cabinet royalty.

Treat counter cabinets as the investment they are. In any remodeling job, they are 40 to 50 percent of the total budget. But quality cabinets are like quality furniture. Measure twice; buy once.

Three different types of counter cabinets, in order of least to most expensive, are available:

1. Stock

2. Semi-custom

3. Custom

The benefit of stock counter cabinets is that they are readily available but only in a limited number of styles, sizes, and finishes.

Semi-custom offers more options for your needs.

Custom counter cabinets offer the most in selection of design style, size, material, etc.

If you can afford it, semi-custom or custom-made counter cabinets are the best choice for the long-term. They are in general better made and constructed from higher quality materials with longer wearing hardware, hinges, and joints.

As they are designed with your needs in mind, they can serve the many varied functions necessary for the room.

Countertops for counter cabinets can include:

Hardwood

Laminates or melamine

Veneers

Two main styles of counter cabinets are:

1. Face-frame

2. Frameless

Face-frame is the most common style for counter cabinets. Their namesake characteristic is a hardwood frame that is the face of the cabinet and covers any rough edges behind it. This face adds strength to sometimes lesser grade woods it may be masking.

Frameless are the counter cabinets have a more European appearance and are more like a box. The doors of these counter cabinets abut one another, giving a seamless, more streamlined appearance.

More information on kitchen countertops