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.

Hi, If the face frames are nominally 1.5" in width, it will work. You can use 1 1/4" overlay doors and hinges. Not exactly sure about what "full overlay" means to you, but 1 1/4" overlay is very nearly that. If the FF are wider than 1.5" you would need to cut away some material so the hinges would mount at the 1.5" point. That cut may be objectionable to some people if not done perfectly. A good router with the proper guide and bit could do the job nicely. Casey

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.

Cotehele kitchens is one of my favorites! Personally, I am not in love with full overlay. I really like inset. Used to be in love with inset. Then, since inset never loved me back, I got over inset. Last kitchen we had half inch overlay and I loved the cabinets. I got the wood and stain I wanted, along with the door style, and I was happy. This time around, I was very upset that the cabinet company I was going with did not offer half inch. Only in one door style. A five panel raised that I did not love. I wanted slab doors in half inch overlay. Because of cost, and really...because I couldn't think of actually having full overlay, I went with the five panel raised door in half inch. And I am so excited to get them! To me, full overlay looks very 90's. It is the norm/standard and I don't think it is hideous or anything. In fact, I swoon over many kitchens with full overlay. Just I think that 1/2" works well as traditional, modern, classic...the works!