The issue of solid wood slab door vs. veneer and plywood was discussed a little a couple of days ago, see the thread I've pasted below. I've been told by a very talented cabinet maker that he doesn't recommend solid wood slab doors due to warping concerns, but you'll note that others who posted in the thread have had practical first hand experience with solid wood cabs and no problems. You certainly can have great looking high quality doors using veneer and plywood.

If you really want a modern look I would go frameless, but in the end it is what you love that matters. Frameless is more modern to me. Do you mean modern/contemporary or modern/modern (as in modern style)? Lots of beautiful contemporary kitchens have framed cabinets, but I haven't seen many truly 'modern' designed kitchens with framed cabs. That said, I bet boxerpups could find you some pics of modern framed cabs, I had no luck with a quick google search I just did.

Full disclosure: I have walnut veneer slab frameless cabs in my modern kitchen, so I'm biased! :)

Here is a link that might be useful: wood cabinet thread

Our cabs are frameless, slab door/drawer, cherry veneer. While veneer often lacks the real depth of richness that solid wood has, it's a trade-off we made in order to have slab doors minus the battens. They still look really nice (IMHO! LOL):

Cat mom,
Veneer does not lack the real depth of richness. It has a different kind of richness that no other process can bring out of wood. In order to get good quality veneer, you need extremely precise and expensive equipment. Imagine getting a sheet of veneer that is as wide as several feet from one single tree where the grain is continously carved out without interruption. Then you lay out the cabinet front on that sheet of veneer. You then can see the entire tree's grain pattern laid out for you every single day! This is beautiful, exciting, and real wood; only veneer can do this. There is no way Sochi's cabinets can be achieved without using good quality wood, exceptionally talented cabinet maker AND expensive and precise equipment.

Most often, people reserve the best wood for veneer since the grains without knots, worms etc are necessary for good quality veneeer. Walnut is a wood specie which is well suited to veneer because of the variable and exciting grain it produces. Teak, birds eye maple, anigre, sapele, wenge, are some of the other species where solid wood is rarely available for cabinet making due to cost. I think if one is thinking of doing slab veneer doors, evaluating the color and wood species that can accentuate the grain is what is exciting about that particular kind of use of wood. If you are not excited about that kind of use of wood, then you should not do veneer. If you think that veneer is a cheap substitute for solid wood, then you should really not do veneer at all. They can wear well, if taken care of. I have seen veneer paneling from 1960s restored on architectural magazines and they look amazingly beautiful!
Well done grain matched veneer slab cabinets cost WAY more than typical mid grade solid wood cabinets done with paint grade or mid grade solid wood.

Many modern companies that offer good quality modern cabinets will only offer plywood substrate for their veneer, ie many Italian and German cabinet companies in the US.

I have also seen countless veneer front cabinets that are poorly done and not very attractive. I think it is easier to make solid wood cabinets to look reasonably decent versus making veneer cabinets to look good. There is alot of art to making these cabinets well, just like everything else in life!

PS my MIL has 20 year old solid slab wood doors on her cabinets. They have generic boring look and are not very attractive but they did not warp either.

kaismom, I was not knocking sochi's cabs at all (I've seen pics, and love them BTW). For the record, my cabs are cherry veneer, and the interior doors in my house are oak veneer. I also have a solid oak front door. I have a solid walnut DR table with a buffet and floatinf shelf bove from the same log. There is a difference between veneer and the solid wood, and I still maintain that in most cases solid wood does have a depth that most veneers don't have. I still love my veneered cabs, and do not think them a poor substitute. They were what we chose for our kitchen, we chose them for a reason, but that does not change the difference between them and the solid wood I have seen (or have) in other applications.

We tried it both ways, with and without the face frames. Unfortunately it was more of a trial and error thing vs something that was planned, lol.

If you have some time to kill, you can take a look through my kitchen thread and at the construction photos which show the before and after shots.

Here is a link that might be useful: My kitchen thread

Veneer is a much greener choice. It takes the desirable wood and allows say 100 people to enjoy that tree instead of just 2 that would consume it for solid wood cabinets.

Veneering over plywood is very tricky and usually most top quality cabinet makers won't do it. THe problem is that you have to have a very very smooth substrate, and plywood just isn't smooth enough or contains knots. Those knots and grain patterns of the substrate plywood can telegraph through the veneer and show. That's NOT what you want in a job.

It's a myth that plywood is somehow more "real wood" than is MDF. Both are composed of wood! Plywood is very very thin veneer layers laid cross grain to each other and glued and pressed together. Good quality plywood has no internal voids and all the layers are composed of the same quality wood material, such as baltic birch. Poor quality plywood is crap. It has skips and voids and big knotholes etc.

MDF is small offcuts from the milling process separated into the basic fibers of the tree. When those fibers are combined with glues and pressed, the grains go every which way, which creates strength. It also creates an extremely smooth surface which is perfect for furniture construction.

The terms partical board, and MDF are routinely interchanged without much thought as to the fact that they really aren't interchangeable. Partical board has visible wood fibers and can be compressed at a density of anywhere from around 14 pounds per square inch for the cheap round bed tables that fall apart when you put a drink on them to 60 pounds per square inch with better quality glues that can sit in water for an hour or two and show no ill effects.

MDF is smaller and more invisible fibers and compressed under higher pressure. It's actually a lot more wood per square inch than any plywood is if you want to get technical! Ask any cabinet installer. They don't prefer plywood for durabiliy. They prefer it because it's a lot lighter and makes their job easier when hanging.

When cabnets are made from factory sourced desirable wood plywood, then the cherry or teak or whatever is the desirable grain is the final layer on the plywood and is done on quality no knots or voids plywoood at a cross grain to the previous layer with good quality glues. The desirable wood is generally thicker than shop applied veneer, so even if there is a problem with the substrate, the veneer won't telegraph the issue. It's pretty easy to take that good quality plywood and edge band it and create slab cabinet doors. I could do that, and I don't even own a panel saw, just a good table saw. However, it's pretty difficult to take any plywood, good quality or not, and apply a thin veneer to it in shop without it telegraphing the plywood substrate at some point. A good quality vacuum press will suck that thin veneer right to the substrate and mold it to it, and that includes any substrate graining patterns if they exist. That's why MDF is the traditional substance used for veneer work. Yes, you can find thicker veneers out there to go on plywood, but they are specialty items and pretty expensive and usually reserved for fine furniture rather than cabinetry. If you want your cabinets made like fine furniture, you can certainly have it done. Just be prepared to pay the labor and materials to have it done---and be prepared to take those cabinets with you when you move like they do in Europe. THe next owner may not appreciate the quality and paint over them or rip them out.