Good Grief, that's hideous. You don't profile the edges of faceframes with inset doors. You have either a) a sharp corner or b) a quirk bead. But not a roundover, bevel, corner bead or any other shape, because it makes for this unsightly, sloppy margin.
I get the impression that the doors are also set back about 1/4 from the front of the faceframe; it's esp. apparent in the last pic.
In the last pic, the furniture feet also look off.
Casey

They are unusual--is there anything you can do at this point? Did you see a sample and is this how they do it? The bevel really is different, and might be why they look gappy.

That's not right at all -- they should correct this or you'll never be happy with the cabinets.

There is no way the edges of the hinges should be visible, as well.

How frustrating to see this on the final walkthrough. Hopefully the contractor will do the right thing for you.

Billy

Joann, I'm so sorry your cabinets haven't turned out just right. I hope you can get this resolved. I also hope we don't use the same cabinet maker and experience similar problems. Your cabinet maker wasn't from the Asheville area was he?

This is the one thing I worry about concerning the use of insets. We leave our windows open a lot, and the mountain air seems to shrink and expand the wood doors and drawers around our current (rental) house.

Well, Casey, your assessment is harsh, but does validate how unhappy I am with the end result. When I saw it, I was just boohooing. I saw a sample of the door before they built the cabinets, but I never saw what the door would look like in the frame. The drawings weren't any help because they didn't have that kind of detail.

When I first met with the cabinetmaker, I gave him copies of all of the pictures I had of redroze's kitchen. What I was mainly looking for was the way the drawers were done with the top drawer a slab and then the drawers below that a modification of a true inset. I guess her cabinets have that bevel which he copied, but they are so pretty and mine turned out so messy. I'm posting one of the pictures of her kitchen that I gave to my cabinetmaker. I hope that is within the bounds of "fair usage" so y'all can see what I was aiming for.

ncamy - no, the cabinetmaker is in Greer. The vanities in the master and guest bathrooms turned out great. But, I don't even want to show pictures of the hash they made of the tops of the bookcases that form a half-wall with the keeping room and some other trim. Luckily, that has been fixed.

Here is the guest bath vanity that also has inset doors & drawers. That came out very nice and doesn't look at all "sloppy". I guess having that bead makes a difference. Is there any possible way something like that could be retrofit on the kitchen cabinets?

As DH likes to say, this is a house that was designed around my kitchen. The layout is great, the granite & marble are stunning & I have a fabulous Capital Culinarian sitting there waiting for me to enjoy, but the cabinet quality is disheartening. I haven't even gotten to live in the house & I'm thinking about what it will take to replace the cabinets & still be able to preserve my gorgeous granite.

Do y'all think the doors and drawers can be redone to better tolerances? I'm sure I can get use to it with time, but I feel as if anyone with a discerning eye who comes into my kitchen is going to think I have no taste if I am willing to accept these cabinets. (sad face)

Thanks for the support & confirmation - Jo Ann

Jo Ann, no inset experience here, but I wouldn't be happy with that. I hope you can get a good resolution. Your kitchen and setting is too stunning to be ruined with those cabs. Good luck.

Can you post another picture of the kitchen further back so we can get a better feel of what it looks like overall? Maybe if we weren't looking at it so close up then the gap wouldn't be so obvious. Perhaps the other beautiful elements will take center stage.

I think it would be fine if the doors we a hair larger on all sides. It is the gap that bothers me. They could re-do the doors to make it work and leave the frames alone, IMHO.
They may even be able to re-sell the doors they made and recoup some money from it. In any case, that is their problem not yours.

Hrmm. They'd look better if they were painted dark blue or something.

At least you have that custom handmade look! Nobody as cabinets like that. :/

I agree with dianalo, at the very most you wouldn't have to replace the entire set of cabinets, just the doors and drawer fronts. Everything else about your kitchen is gorgeous.

You are right, Redroze's have a similar bevel and a slight gap. Just looked at her kitchen in the FKB. But some shots appear to have a double-edged (?) bevel. It's done very purposefully.

It doesn't look bad at all. In fact, in all the countless threads devoted to her kitchen, and I was around when it was happening, I don't recall anyone making comments about gaps? Maybe my memory is bad?

From her photo collection I don't see any hinges showing, though. It was probably a style her cabinet maker was proficient in. Since it is rather unusual, yours may never have attempted it.

I would step back and take far shots. Then talk to him about replacing the worst doors with slightly larger ones, or doing some adjustment to conceal hinges better.

I thought we did see photos of your kitchen a little while back? My memory again? It looked great to me. I honestly do not think anyone will look at that overall space and judge you to have "bad taste". Not happening. Really.

Maybe they could add a bead to the door. That way if they had to trim the door down a little to accommodate the bead, they could.

Dr. Jo, I believe the industry standard is 3/32" for the space around around an inset door. Some very good custom carpenters might do 1/16", but I've read that 3/32" is more functional for kitchen cabinetry. It would indeed seem that yours are not that tight -- especially if you can see so much of the hinges. A nickel is 3/32" -- try that to see how much bigger yours are? Having exact measurements (and discrepancies) might help give you a bit of sway with the cabinetmakers if they're balky. (How have they been to work with so far?)

What kind of hinges are you using? At first I thought they were butt hinges, in which case they're set totally wrong; but it seems they're Euro inside hinges? In which case it's true, there's just a tad too much of them showing on some doors.

(Casey I don't think that cabinet foot is off-kilter ; it's the quarter-round on the base trim that's throwing you off visually in the photo.)

Don't despair! The quality of the cabinets is evident, as is your great attention to the design of the space.

Perhaps slightly larger doors could be substituted in the most egregiously gapping cabs. Worst case scenario, as ncamy suggests, perhaps they could reduce the gap by adding a bead over where they've routed the inset along the frame itself. A la:
{{!gwi}}

For our reno, we went from overlay to inset cabinets. With our cabinets, I can see some gaps like you are describing and showing.

{{!gwi}}

It bothers me a little bit IRL. Also, there is no soft close function on my doors. We are slowly getting used to that, but still have a tendency to fling open the doors without thinking causing them to smack into the cabinets. (I guess they will be getting the distressed look!)

I would think the gaps would be more noticeable on white cabinets since there is an obvious dark interior contrast. In our case, I have found that I focus more on the other elements of the kitchen and so I can live with it. But I can understand your concern and questions. Ultimately it is your kitchen and you need to decide if it's going to continue to bug you, because then you definitely need to take action.

The beautiful photos of Redroze's kitchen don't appear to have those gaps, but the pictures are not taken head on (like yours) and they are from a greater distance. It would be interesting to have some more closeup photos of other people's white inset cabinets for you to compare. Then you could have something to show the cabinet maker if you went that route.

Good luck to you! Your kitchen is so lovely!

(Doonie--what gaps? Those are teeny! How can you complain about such purty cabinets? :) You might be able to add soft close to the doors--with the Blum hinges, at least mine, the soft close is a thingy that slips onto the hinges.)

Thanks Fori! (Thanks for the Blum idea...I'll have to check that out!)

If the bevel was the intention, all right, but the gaps are still much to big and show too much variation.
My gripe with the foot is that if it is hung out to the side, it should project the same amount frontward, so it doesn't look bandy-legged.
Casey

joann, i'm so sorry your cabinets didn't turn out as you expected. there's really nothing more i can add except i hope this can be resolved quickly and easily. i feel terrible for you. and living off site makes it that much more difficult. please try and remain calm. this has been my mantra throughout our 27 month (and counting) build. getting upset makes the situation worse and makes it harder to accomplish anything. -but i you know this.

just know i'm thinking of you. GOOD LUCK!

I am so sorry you are having to deal with this....I, too, think the gap is just too big....I am in the process of having inset cabinets installed...my son is a contractor and made sure that I realized there could be gaps...so, far mine are ok...wrong drawer fronts, but that will can be easily changed...I know the frustration you are feeling...we are in the home stretch, I hope!!!, of a complete house remodel that has been going on for 16 months....please take kateskouros advice and don't let it get you...at one point, it seemed everyday there was something going wrong....took out a lot of the fun for me of being able to do this...hang in there and the bead idea is great and would elivate the problem....where are you in SC...have a vacation home on coast of NC not far from Myrtle Beach, SC...

For what its worth, I think I have very similar gaps around my doors and drawers, but with darker cabs it isn't as noticeable. I did make some adjustments to make sure gaps were even all around which helped a bit. In at least one of your pix it seems that you too might be able to make some adjustments, such as open a very small gap between two doors to narrow the gap between the door and face frame. Also make sure you doors are adjusted as far out as possible without looking goofy. All adjustments are made at the hinges.

Here is a picture of my cabs. Hard to see the gaps unless you look closely (sorry, I was lazy and didn't take a picture specifically to show the gaps.)

One more observation - your inspiration photo was shot at an angle. I'm guessing your inspiration cabinets have much more noticeable gaps than the picture suggests.

I have inset cabs, just installed. My first thought was 'oh no' these gaps won't do. I was informed that they won't be adjusted until we get the hardware installed....soon. Will let you know. Be firm with your contractor and the cabinet maker. They want you to be happy. Make them make it right. by the way, the bun feet on the guest bath vanity are completely adorable. wish I would have thought of that!!!! Black cabs with hex tile is good looking too. Good Luck~ donna

I actually like the profiled edge. Anyway, if that's what you told him to do, can't complain that he did it.

The gaps don't all look bad to me. A few do. Measure them and see which ones are actually large gaps. Those can be probably be adjusted, narrow one gap a bit while increasing the opposite side, should be easy if he used adjustable hinges. In the last picture I'd want the upper drawer adjusted a touch higher.

Kitchen cabinets are not - usually - fine handmade furniture, built to tolerances so fine that pushing in one drawer quickly causes the others to be pushed out by air pressure etc. They lead a hard life, with heavy loads and heavy usage. I wouldn't obsess over getting the tightest gaps. Unless you actually specified the gap he was to achieve, of course.

My inset cabinets also have gaps which I'm not thrilled about. I was told that having the bead around the cabinet would help lessen the look of the gap. With white cabinets the gap is so much more pronounced than with dark which is why your bathroom cabinets appear to look better than the kitchen cabinets.

Mine have only been in for a little over a month, so I haven't seen yet how they will be during the warmer months when the humidity is higher and the wood swells.

Jo Ann, what happened?

-Bee

DrJoann,

I just came across your post as I've been busy running around my 5 month old son. I'm SO sorry to hear that you've been unhappy with your cabinets.

I think, as with the other posters above who mentioned it, there is sometimes a danger of having gaps with inset cabinets. I don't know if this is due to the experience of the cabinetmaker - ours had never done inset cabinets before actually. I showed them a photo of an inset cabinet with a beaded edge, then we saw a door style with a bevelled edge in his workshop. So he did sort of a combined style which is why I mentioned that it's a "take" on an inset beaded cabinet.

I don't think your cabinets look bad when they are viewed from afar, at all. I think the close-ups show that some of your doors have larger gaps than others. I also think that some of your doors were made too small, and getting new, larger doors would solve the problem. For those with minor gaps, you could have your cabinetmaker adjust the hinges so there's less of a gap at the edges, but that would of course increase the gap where the two doors meet.It also wouldn't work for drawers.

Here are front views of my cabinets:

Here's a close up where you can see some cabinets/drawers have more of a gap than others:

Just tried circuspeanut's nickel trick. Most of the gaps are exactly the size of a nickel - while some, particularly the drawers, are slightly bigger than a nickel. Maybe a nickel plus 1/4 of a nickel.

The size of the gap can vary form maker to maker, BUT it needs to be consistent through out the entire kitchen AND and equal reveal around each side of the door / drawer.

While a quirk bead is traditional, it is not the be all and end all of inset cabinets. Redroz's detail is fine and ann's is a a sleek interpretation of that and is cool, if it were executed properly.

You need(ed) a good plan to start with.

The kitchen looks pretty much done so I assume the installer was not planning on coming back. A seasoned installer would not have left that job without adjusting all the gaps to be even. A competent contractor would not have accepted that work!

Now , you are a bit culpable in this too. Ordering custom cabinets without DETAILED drawings and exacting specifications is not a good practice and too often results in what we have here. Billy Bob the cabinet guy thinks this is the schizzle, Frank the contractor is apathetic because he doesn't have to live there and Ann the homeowner is distraught because this is nothing like what she pictured in here head.

The spacing looks fine to me, it's the bevel on the frames that makes it look so off... not sure why they would ever put a bevel on the frames of that style of cabinet - makes no sense to me :(