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beachem

Frameless vs face frame for drawers

beachem
8 years ago

I wanted to share my limited experience so far. IMO frameless is superior for lower cabinet drawers than framed.

I've been putting my IKEA cabs together and installing drawers. I found that I keep having to increase the number of drawers in a cab because I have so much space.

Previously I read how most GWers prefer only 3 stacks as otherwise the drawers are useless. So far one of my island cab will be 5 drawers as I've put things in them and kept adjusting up due to extra space.

On the contrary, I have to order custom face frame on a 3 drawers stack to make the top drawer usable. Apparently, I can't even put in a coffee cup in the first drawer in most cabinet makers.

I traveled with a plate and coffee cup when I checked out displays by Decora, Ultracraft, Shiloh, Crystal, Dynasty, and 5 others. None of them fit a coffee cup. They only had about 3.5" clearance.

With a framed cab you need 6" of space leaving 26" for drawers. With frameless you need 1.5" for the frame, leaving 30.5" for drawers.

My MiL's kitchen is a tiny galley about the size of a typical NY kitchen but she has a huge amount of storage. Her cabs were custom made 30 yrs ago by a European carpenter and they were frameless. Her lowers were all drawers and she had all the wonderful utilities that is now just coming into vogue.

Her rangetop cab has 4 drawers and fit everything including large stockpots and crockpots.

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