Oh, crap, I hit the wrong thing and my message disappeared.

Here it is again:

Hi, Worried. Hope I can help. I just measured my white Thermo-foil cabinet doors. I have 36 x 42 and 36 x 28. The cabinets are 9 years old and they have never sagged. I'm amazed! That cabinet maker reeked of something with a high proof rating! Anyway, they do have totally adjustable hinges. I'm on the beach in FL if that makes a difference! I'm also dreaming about replacing them with solid wood slab doors, but I may rethink this thanks to everyone on this site!

Good luck!

Oh, my previous message said it, but I forgot to add. These are frameless cabinets without a center stile, and they are truly structurally sound! They still look great!

Gees, this isn't supposed to be hard!

My Mom has a 33 inch frameless sink base and a 33 inch cabinet over her fridge that do not have a stile. I checked Kitchen Craft and the max width at which they put in a centre stile varies depending on the cabinet. I checked the Catalogue for Cabinetsmith (a nice frameless stock product carried by a couple of very good showrooms here) and they go up to 36 without a centre stile as does Parkhill\Maple Creek which is an RTA frameless product from MasterBrand. I wouldn't worry, it isn't like it's a really significant extra width.

Here is a link that might be useful: DIY Kitchen Craft specs

My cabinet guy prefers to do center stiles in the wider cabinets because the long shelves sag...so I'm getting extra shelves to spread the weight (and because I wanted them).

Whenever I've ever come across "sag" in any bookcase, I turn the board over and I'm good for another ten years at least. It depends on the original material. I don't think it will be a big problem in the future; methinks things are getting better and technology is moving forward.

IKEA has 36"w cabinets, with no stiles. Drawers or doors. They are known for good quality in their kitchen choices.

HTH
-david

The reason I prefer not to go over 32" without a center stile is that I'm known for loading up my shelves. Only a weightlifter would be able to carry a single row of the art/history books that are crammed tight onto every shelf of all 23+ bookcases we own. My DH worked in a warehouse and regularly hauled around 100-lb boxes, but even he can't carry around more than about half the books on a single shelf comfortably.

Now, my kitchen stuff is very good quality but not as heavy as an entire row of my art books. However, it wouldn't take much to get there - my 6-qt cast iron Dutch oven and two 25-lb bags of rice (which a lot of Asians have on hand), and you're getting dangerously close to the 75-lb limit on most kitchen cab shelving. I have five different sets of dinnerware service, and some of them are VERY heavy, to the point where you wouldn't want to carry all 16 dinner plates at one time (unlike bone china, where an average adult could manage 16 plates with no more trouble than it would be to carry 15 lbs. of sugar or flour).

If you have any doubts about your shelving in a cab wider han 32", the solution is simple. Weigh what you are going to put into it, and see what the total is. If you are well under the weight rating - your cab maker should be able to tell you what the max load limit is per shelf - then you'll be fine; e.g., you're only putting 50 lbs of kitchen stuff on a shelf rated for 75 lbs.

My 36" sink cabinet, without stile, holds a full-size granite shelf w/ a 36" Whitehaus farm sink on top. Rock solid. I explained what weight the base would have to carry, and have had no problems. Good luck to you! Kate.

No trouble with any of my Ikea 36" cabinets, either. Don't worry about it.

I have 15" deep uppers that are 36" wide, frameless. One stores canned goods and other heavy stuff. I have 3/4" plywood shelves and no sagging.

My stepmother has 10 year old Kraftmaid framed, 30" wide and they sag like heck where they used particle board - even with a center stile. She does have one with matching interior and plywood shelves and no sagging.

Go figure!

I don't have any cabs over 30", and I specified no center stiles. But for the 24"-deep cabinet over the fridge (30" wide), and the cabinet over the OTR microwave (also 30" wide), the KD recommended center stiles. She said these cabinets needed the extra support, because of the extra depth, and for supporting the weight of the microwave.

I have to say, the center stile over the fridge cabinet in particular is a PITA.

These are framed cabinets, btw - Kraftmaid.

I am slowly backing away from the phone.....

Taking into consideration everyone's replies, I think I will be okay.

The 36'' wide x 24" deep cabinet over the fridge will have a pullout drawer so I can store things I don't use that often and none are very heavy. In the 33" over the D/O will have baking sheets, trays and cooling racks. I am installing dividers (I'm pretty handy and when I saw how much these cost as after-market items and compared it to what the cabinet company was going to charge I decided I would do it myself). The 33" sink base will be in the middle of a run of cabinets so it should have adequate support (I haven't decided on a counter top yet - granite or engineered quartz are the two favorites at this time).

Thank you all so much. I am off to the tile store to decide on tile for the bathroom and to sneak a peak at possible back splash options.

Woodmode and Brookhaven go to 36" without a center stile. With good construction, you should be fine. I have a 33 and a 36 without a stile -- one is a sink base and the other is my over cabinet and the space above. I don't have any upper cabinets that large.

Most European cabinet makers have 48" wide frameless cabinets in uppers and lowers. Val Cucine has a wall cabinet called the Alla that is frameless and it can be as large as 8feet or something crazy like that. Size is relative!! Ikea has standard 39" wide wall cabinets with no center stile either.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{!gwi}}

My bookshelves have face frames (except for the temporary Ikea ones that now live in the garage and require the shelves being flipped every so often). Of course, saggy shelves and framelessness are two sort of unrelated things...who ever introduced that off-topic bit ought to be--o, was that me? Never mind.

I like that cabinet Homepro linked to. Very spiffy. And I can't help but notice it seems to have internal ribs (that probably have a proper carpentry term) in the middle.

Anyway, framed or frameless, any long shelf should be a good unbendy material, and I wouldn't worry about going too long without a stile unless it was reeeeaaaally long.

Homepro's cab photo is very nice. You can also clearly see that there is a metal support L-bracket, similar to what is used on bookshelves, right in the middle of it. It wouldn't matter if you used plywood or high-density particleboard, there is NO piece of wood material that is going to make it past 3' without some sort of center support, if you are going to weigh it down with heavy items.

If all you are going to put in your cabs is medium and lightweight items, then you are fine.

My DH and I have bowed out a lot of bookshelves over the last three decades. Using a high quality wood product and keeping the length under 3' is what works best for us. YMMV, of course. Good luck with whatever you decided to do.