Frameless Cabs that look like Inset?

15 years ago

Does anyone have framless cabinets that were made to look like inset (see link)? They add some moulding around the doors to get the look. From what I can tell, the advantages are more space and lower price. The disadvantage is that there are seams. We are painting our cabinets (not factory finished) and my husband thinks the painter could calk the seams to minimize them. Has anyone tried this? How does it look? Are there any other disadvantages? I would love to see pictures of painted cabinets done this way.

Thanks so much!

Here is a link that might be useful:

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Comments (9)

lyfia
15 years ago
The pic you show I'm not seeing them being frameless. What am I missing? Where is the frameless part? Frameless means doors butt up to each other and there is not a face frame on the front of the cabinet box. With such construction there is no space for molding unless when you install them you place them spaced apart to be able to put molding in the space in between.

Do you mean regular framed cabinets to be made to look like inset. I could see that being done fairly easily with buiding up the frame with molding.
ccoombs1
15 years ago
Those are not framless. Framless boxes are made of a sheet of plywood with wood veneer edging on it. If you put the door inside the opening instead of overlapping it, you would only have 3/4" showing. The picture you provided has spacing of at least 1 1/2", which can only be accomplished with a frame of some sort.
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You won't lose much space in the cabinets, it's the drawers where you'll lose space, you can end up with some very tiny drawers. Since there's a frame, the drawer will have to fit inside the frame, as will the drawer front, Someone here, a few years ago, posted a photo of her very small top drawers in her inset cabinets. She hadn't expected that. For example, if you have 12" wide cabinets, you'll still have all the inside space in the cabinets, since the space behind the frame is still available for storage. But the drawers will lose about 1" on each side because of the frame, as well as losing space equal to the depth of the wood on the sides of the drawer. Even if that's only 1/2" per side, you've already lost 3" of usable drawer space - which leaves you with about a 9" wide drawer. They look great, but if you've got a small kitchen and you need every inch of cabinet and drawer space, you might not want to get inset cabinets. Have you looked through the finished kitchen blog, you might get some good ideas, and certainly see some great kitchens. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: different cabinet types
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joy824...not sure what this style is called. I snapped this pic in the cabinet maker's showroom - it was the style I choose. At the risk of embarrassment, I didn't even realize they were inset, or what that meant. I just knew I liked them. Yes, I'll have a small island. At this point, we're still in the scary stages of the project where granite top, cabinet stain/color, backsplash choices have not been made. More fretting to do for sure. better2beoutside...these will be custom cabinets, if by that you mean cabinets are custom designed for the space. Your suggestion to remove the rails between the lower drawers but keep the frame on the sides is probably what I was thinking. The adjacent cabinet will have a lower drawer, but because it will be much deeper than the lowest drawer of the 3-drawer cabinet, the rail between the large lower drawer and the paneled warming drawer above it would be in line with the ~mid point of the middle drawer of the 3-drawer cab. (There was probably a much easier way to word that, sorry, typing fast.) Additionally, the adjacent cabinet will be about 1'' deeper (25'' vs. 24'') to allow the granite counter top that will sit atop the 3-drawer cabinet to run into the adjacent cabinet a bit more gracefully. I'm thinking that would all help to disguise the slight change in style if I ask to eliminate one or two rails. I will double check dims with the cabinet maker. I'm now wondering that when I choose a 'style', I was also dictating dimensions of rails and stiles to provide a certain look. Thanks for the advice, very much appreciated. Jon
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Sadly no cabinets to show yet...next month! :) We get to go see them before they get painted for any last changes, so I'll try to get some photos then. The shop is right that you really can't replicate beaded inset on frameless, though---ours don't have any beads and are a super simple door style, which made it a bit easier. My uppers will be 13" deep though---our (brand new!) plates are 10.75" and do NOT fit in a 12" deep inset cabinet. (Remember that with inset, you lose both 3/4" for the back of the cabinet and 3/4-1" for the door in the front, so interior depth of a 12" cabinet is probably more like 10.5" or less.) So yes, definitely good to check!
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mindstorm
15 years ago
As far as I know ... What lyfia and ccoombs said.

Logic would have it that if you started with a frameless box and then instead of attaching a door to the box you instead put a frame in front of it and then attached a door to that frame, you'd now have a framed cabinet.

I don't think I'm getting the question either.
alex399
15 years ago
Jbrodie-

That picture is indeed true inset doors, not a Frameless "cheater" if you will...

The gentleman who posted that picture was trying to show the narrower side stiles on cabinets that were butted to other cabinets. It's a much nicer, more consistent look when you have a lot of cabinet boxes screwed together. One person had mentioned using frameless boxes, spacing them a few inches apart and ripping filler material mounted flush with the frameless doors to give the "appearance" of inset cabs. That is a system of cheating I wouldnt recommend for anything but a basement rental apartment or a blind man's home.

I'm not a frameless guy. I've built a few sets for garages, but mostly I do inset door work on everything I build. (I guess it's popular here in NY) They're worth every penny I charge and then some.. They are a pain in the butt to get just right.
rmkitchen
15 years ago
Hmm, I think I know what you're talking about. We have frameless cabinets and with filler (in certain areas) it does indeed look inset.

Look at the cabinets above the oven and refrigerator and the glass-fronted cabs to the left of the fridge -- see how they have the filler all around, reminiscent of inset. Our fillers are for insulation purposes [called out in the specs of the oven] and the box around the fridge.

The v. first time we met (in person) the man who would make our cabinets for us it was in a kitchen where he'd done all the cabinets with filler so they looked "inset." That's not what I was after -- I wanted all that space (no space wasted on filler!) and when I think of inset I think of exposed hinges. That being said, I have to say that the cabinets pictured above look terrific, nothing flimsy or cheap (re: alex399's comments they would only be fit for a "basement rental ... or a blind man's home") about them. To each their own!
alex399
15 years ago
Hey Rm,

I didnt mean to offend, and I never said anything about flimsy or cheap... My point was I dont think anyone should settle for pseudo-inset cabinets from a custom fabricator. While they may look similar, it's just not the same.
rmkitchen
15 years ago
I knew you weren't talking about me and I wasn't offended! I understood what you meant and in generalities I agree (about trying to make something inauthentic pass for the real thing, like a cubic zirconia for a diamond)."Flimsy and cheap" are my words, but since I think I have what jbrodie is describing, I wanted to make sure s/he knew that that application can be suitable for a nice house, not just the environments you mentioned.

I guess because I've only seen it done by our cabinetmaker (in another kitchen and then the little bit in ours) I'm not sure how it can look so bad, but I'll take your word for it!
mcr1
15 years ago
take a look at different doors styles, some are made to mimic inset cabinets, I would send you a link but it is late and I am feeling lazy. They have a square machine edge with about a flat 1" rail and then a beaded groove routed in the face and then another section of flat. That was more work than posting the link!
mcr1
15 years ago
http://www.conestogawood.com/index.cfm?act=doors&grp_id=8

there you go, look at the first couple of doors.

Frameless Cabs that look like Inset?

Comments (9)

lyfia

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