How much frame should be visible with full overlay cabinets?
Hello all,
I have to ask this. I have tried researching this issue and can't seem to find much on it. But I need to decide right now if this is something I am justified in being concerned about, before it's too late.
My GC just installed my full overlay shaker style cabinets and the space/gaps between the doors/drawers of my separate cabinets is kind of bugging me. In all the beautiful kitchen photos I see online, they seem so much more seamless than mine.
(I'm not sure how to attach more than one photo, so I will post additional photos separately. Sorry.)
Are the gaps between my cabinets within "normal limits" or should they reasonably be tighter. I know that the cabinets were placed as close together as they could be, as manufactured, but was my GC supposed to trim the sides of the front frames so that they fit more tightly together??
If you look at the photo of my range top, you can see that there is about a 1 1/2" gap on the left between the doors of the adjacent cabinets, but on the right, the gap was much less. Actually, when I pointed this out, my GC actually widened the gap on the right with a filler to make it more symmetrical, since on the sink side, there is a gap closer to 1 1/2' between the doors under the sink and the door to the corner cabinet.
To give a little more background, my GC is trying to stay on schedule (to his credit), but the cabinets were installed in one day so that the counter top people could come and do their template. So if I do end up making an issue out of this, the templating would have to be repeated, if they haven't already started cutting. This was just yesterday and the counter installation is scheduled the middle of next week, so I'm hoping I still have time. But obviously I need to decide now.
I had decided that I was fine with the gaps, but I've been looking at photos online all day and it's driving me nuts. Please help.
Comments (15)
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Comments (6)When my husband built our old entertainment system cabinets, he did narrow frames and no frames between the drawers in a section: (For those reading my thread on our kitchen/family room remodel - these cabinets were sized to fit the niche to the right of the old fireplace and went to good homes with 2 of our son's when we got the new cabinets.) The frames he made are only slightly wider than the thickness of the cabinet walls and since there is no frame between the drawers, we didn't lose space to that. The result is framed cabinets with almost as much drawer capacity as frameless. These were inset, but would work equally well with full overlay drawer fronts. We talked to a couple of local custom cabinet makers when we did our kitchen, but they wouldn't consider deviating even that much from their usual framing, but I've seen someone post here who had a custom shop who did it. It shouldn't require new machines for a framed cabinet maker to do this....See MoreFull overlay kitchen cabinets hinge swing
Comments (15)I think it's worth a trip to the cabinet maker's showroom so that you can take a look at how far they will open if that's a big concern to you. Truth be told, in my previous kitchen, the doors didn't open as far as what the new ones do and that was one (and probably about the ONLY!) issue that I really never had with them. It was what it was and it wasn't a functional problem for me. When doors open, they have a bit of "give" with the hinges, so it's not as if they are going to break off if they are reasonably swung open. You find that most of the time when people open a cabinet, they don't "guide" the door opening the full way - they open it a bit and allow inertia to take over with the rest of the opening process. I think that everyone in the family will quickly get used to how far the cabinets open. There's a learning curve any time you get something new because it works/reacts a little differently than what you're used to, bit it in cabinets, doors, windows, appliances, washers, dryers, cars, etc. Solve the problem with how far the bases open by getting mostly drawers...it's what most of us do because it's much more functional overall....See MoreFull overlay, Inset or Faux Inset Overlay?
Comments (11)Don't feel you have to enforce vertical symmetry with the need to line the coolers up with the stacked bottles. If slightly wider ones are cheaper and would work, the go with that without a qualm. And i think having them the same dimension actually weakens the overall design, a bit. You'll notice that in colored picture, the bottle stack and the cooler doors don't line up, and it still looks well-balanced. Notice, too, that there's even an optical illusion-created discordance between the stacked bottle rack on the right and the strongly vertical-orientation of the glass-paneled doors to the left on the other side of the TV. So just making those two sides match didn't result in an eye-sweet balance, no matter what the tape measure may say. In your case, I think the strong apparent verticality of the coolers' slab doors may make them seem narrower than they actually are, creating a top heavy look to the wine racks above. This violates the general sense we have that things should be bolder, and stronger-appearing on the base, and successive layers should get lighter, narrower, smaller, or whatever. In our second drawing, with the coolers moved inward, the optical-illusion of their narrowness is resolved. Also it may just be artefacts of the layout but the D-shaped raised trim pattern on the sides of the narrow lower doors strikes me as unattractive. Also door hinging should be book-matched, or disguised to look that way. HTH L....See MorePics of partial overlay? Give up full overlay or raised panel?
Comments (16)I like partial overlay. In my last home, I had partial overlay in my kitchen, living room built-ins and office cabinetry. They were all custom cabinets. The house was a tiny (880 s.f.) 1960's box near the beach. There wasn't much dictating style for the neighborhood (we had a flat roof and our neighbors were in an 1800's Victorian), so we just did what we wanted. In my current home, we have inset cabinets in the kitchen, which I love, but I think if we didn't have a budget for the inset I would have gone with partial overlay again. I just like the look. I think the above examples are beautiful. Here are a few examples from my previous home of partial overlay (sorry, only one kitchen example). This was our living room. We installed the fireplace and surrounding cabinets which were partial overlay. This was a Tuff Shed that we turned into a detached office. Our lot size was only 2200 s.f. so space was tight! The previous owners had installed the shed, but when I was pregnant with our daughter, we turned the shed into our office with custom partial overlay cabinets. Here is the partial overlay kitchen cabinetry (and laundry room beyond) that was installed by the previous owner....See More- 10 years ago
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I don't know - I have full overlay frameless cabinets and there are zero gaps between cabinets. I've attached a picture of the sink cabinet with the pull-out trash to the left and a 6" cabinet door to the right.
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10 years agokiwi71 - Not an expert but someone with the same issue in my kitchen. I had no idea what to expect (or order) and only after everything was installed did I slowly start to question the gaps.
Some of my gaps came because I converted doors from hinged to pullouts. Others, because of my non-standard layout and door sizes and just not knowing enough to plan for this up front. Also, DH and I installed the drawer fronts ourselves and I think at the time we were just shooting for 'equal distances'.
2 1/2 years later, I still look at the gaps. I'm pretty sure that I could improve them, by reinstalling the drawer fronts so that they were closer to each other, and then adding finished filler pieces in certain areas. Here's an example, where I mocked up this on the drawer bank to the right but not the left. I'd add a filler which would run from the right edge of the drawer bank to the corner. (Of course at this point, I'm starting to worry about color variation).
Could you add some filler to the left of your range? This is the only place which seems to stand out to me.
sjhockeyfan - what kind of hinges to you have, that allow the doors to be so close to the adjacent drawers? Your left is a pullout trash but the right..?
Your cabinets are beautiful and your kitchen is shaping up nicely. I will look forward to more pictures!
- 10 years ago
Oldbat, I honestly don't know but here's a picture. This is the hinge for the right-hand door of the sink cabinet. They are all the same, though. Isn't this normal for frameless cabinets?
- 10 years ago
jerzeegirl