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Cabinets

Cabinetry 101: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to
Know About Cabinets (and More)

Kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, laundry room cabinets… you know where cabinets need to go inside your home. You know that you want them to be functional AND beautiful. And whether it’s pots and pans or extra shampoo, you know what you need storage solutions for.

But shopping for new cabinets can be overwhelming. With so many options, it can be tricky to figure out what works best for your space, lifestyle, and vision of how you want your space to look and feel.

Ultimate Flooring & Finishes is here to help! We’ve gathered the most important cabinetry terms in one place, so that you can feel confident as you’re making decisions.

Cabinet Components

  1. Rail: The horizontal framing elements of a cabinet door.
  2. Stiles: The vertical framing elements of a cabinet door.
  3. Center Panel: The center of the cabinet door (can be raised or flat).
  4. Inner Edge Profiles: The style of the inside edge next to the center panel.
  5. Outer Edge Profiles: The style of the outside edge of a door or drawer.
  6. Face Frame: The “frame” fixed to the front of the cabinet that the doors and drawers rest against.
  7. Case: The outer walls of the cabinet.
  8. Drawer Front: The section of a drawer that is visible when the drawer is closed (can also be called a drawer face).
  9. Toe-Kick: The recessed space at the bottom of a cabinet.
cabinet components

Cabinet Joinery

Mortise and Tenon: This joinery technique is known for its strength and versatility. It’s most commonly used for 5-piece cabinet doors and drawers.

Dovetail Joints: Considered one of the strongest joints in the industry, dovetail joints are a great solution for cabinetry drawer boxes.

Mitered: Mitered joints are made by beveling each of two parts to be joined, usually at a 45-degree angle. This adds strength to cabinet doors, while also giving cabinet ends a seamless appearance.

cabinet joinery

Cabinet Door Construction Types

Standard Overlay Cabinetry: Also known as Traditional Overlay, this construction type has a more exposed face frame (wide reveal).

Full Overlay Cabinetry: The cabinet doors and drawer fronts are sized to cover most of the cabinet face frame, leaving minimal space (reveal) between the doors. This creates a more custom look.

Inset Cabinets: This construction type is crafted by hand-fitting the doors and drawer fronts within the face frame, giving a full view of the cabinet frame. A popular and distinctive look, inset cabinetry is inspired by early American furniture makers and offers a hand-crafted look with timeless appeal.

cabinet door construction types

Cabinet Door Styles

Raised Panel: Raised panel cabinet doors offer a raised center panel with a specific profile, contour, or both. They work well with traditional and transitional looks.

Flat Panel: Also known as recessed doors, this is where the center panel of the door is flat rather than raised or contoured, and has a specific inside edge profile adjacent to the flat panel. With its sleek lines, flat panel doors are great for any style—traditional, transitional, and even contemporary.

Slab Doors: Slab doors are solid, flat cabinet doors with no rails, stiles, or center panel. A unique look, slab doors work best with transitional or contemporary styles.

Mullion Doors: Both decorative and functional, a mullion cabinet door is composed of panes of glass, mirrors, or other cabinet inserts that take the place of a center panel on a door.

cabinet door styles

Cabinet Finishes & Materials

Glaze Finish: An artistic, hand-applied finish technique where a semi-transparent color is applied over the entire stained or painted finish.

Distressed: This finish technique is hand-detailed by a finish artisan to create a weathered, aged, or antiqued appearance.

Acrylic: This offers either a reflective, high-gloss finish with a smooth and glossy sheen or an ultra-matte finish with a soft and flat look.

Veneer: Veneers utilize both real wood and engineered wood veneers to achieve a consistent color and graining.

Laminate: This is a man-made cabinet finish made with carefully crafted layers of Kraft paper saturated with melamine resin, providing a consistent color and texture.

Thermofoil: Also known as “foil cabinets,” these cabinets use a flexible vinyl finish material that is applied by heating and molding the vinyl over the cabinetry wood.

cabinet finishes and materials

Cabinetry Storage

Pull-Out: A cabinet storage accessory that can be opened with one motion. Opening the cabinet door or drawer “pulls out” the storage accessory at the same time.

Roll-Out: A cabinet storage accessory that can be “rolled out” after the cabinet door is opened, allowing the user to easily access items stored in the back of a cabinet.

cabinetry storage

The Mechanics of a Cabinet

Soft-Close: Also known as “Quiet-Close,” Soft-Close drawers and doors include hardware with a built-in ability to be silent and self-closing. The Soft-Close feature softens slamming noises and helps prevent damage to the cabinetry.

Drawer Guide: The hardware mechanism used to support and glide the drawer, allowing for a smooth open and close.

Barrel Hinge: Also known as a decorative hinge, this refers to a hinge style commonly used on inset cabinetry, where the hinge is visible on the exterior of the cabinet door.

the mechanics of a cabinet

At Ultimate Flooring & Finishes, we believe that your home deserves cabinetry that is beautiful, functional, and perfect for your dream kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, mud room—wherever you need storage solutions!

And if you’re ready to get started, schedule a consultation with us today!

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