About the cabinet doors

The Cabinet Doors and Drawer fronts are available in a wide variety of materials, profiles and colors/finishes. Plastic or polymer doors are (mostly found in outdoor or marine uses) and the metal or stainless steel doors are also relatively expensive for use in the average kitchen. Mica or laminate doors are usually a particle board core covered with a (glued on) plastic “skin”.

Laminate doors are often seen on the lower end of the cabinet price range. Thermo foil doors involve a vacuum formed process where a plastic faced film is laminated to a molded or routed profile (MDF) door core. This is a fairly durable “skin” often seen in white or off white but also found with a wide selection of wood grain or colored patterns.

Wood framed doors are typically constructed using stiles and rails to frame a center panel. The outer frame is usually joined together with either miter cut / biscuit joints or mortise and tennon joinery. While the outer door frame is almost always made of solid wood, the center panel in a 5 piece wood framed door can be a matching veneer on MDF or fiber board substrate or a laminated solid wood strips. I rarely see a solid slab center core because of the warpage factors. The five piece door construction allows the center panel to “float” inside the door frame rather than gluing or pinning the door into a single rigid piece. This “floating panel” system allows the door to breathe or adjust to temperature / humidity changes ….to resist splitting or warping.

Wood Framed Doors are sometimes “inset” into the face frame. This is where the door is mounted inside the face frame so that the door face is flush with the box face. Inset doors are usually found at the upper end of the cabinet price ranges.

Beyond the standard flat panel and raised panel features you will likely find a wide range door frames: Shaker, applied moldings, decorative inlay, bead groove, ogee edge and waterfalls.

Full Overlay Doors versus Traditional or Modified Overlay.

Generally speaking, most of the cost of a single cabinet will be in the door(s). If all other factors are equal, you will find that the full overlay doors cost slightly more than the traditional. Not only is the full overlay door slightly larger (and heavier) but may (in certain applications) require specialized hinges and will almost always require the addition of knobs or pulls. The traditional overlay doors may have “finger slots” routed into the door frames or a beveled frame edges that would make additional knobs or pulls totally optional.