I know this is an old post, but it addresses something I am just learning about so I hope it's ok to revive it. I was assuming that it was impossible to tell the difference between full overlay framed and frameless cabinets when the drawers are closed. jackuvall notes above that the gap between adjacent doors/drawers is smaller in frameless construction, which is what I'm trying to figure out. I was thinking about grain matched walnut (for MB), but all the photos I've saved appear to have very small gaps between drawers and are most likely frameless. Is there a way to minimize the reveal between drawers in full overlay framed construction? I'm after the look below, but in my full overlay framed kitchen the reveal is anywhere from 1/8" - 1/2". It's white painted, so I'd never really noticed, but I think those type of gaps would stick out with grain matched walnut. Opinions and ideas?

There is really no fundamental difference in strength between framed and framless cabinets. Poorly-built frameless cabinets will be less sturdy than well-built face-framed cabinets, and well-built frameless cabinets will be more sturdy than poorly built face-framed cabinets. Regarding your statement: I see that the small frame in the kitchen reduces very slightly the useable space in terms of installing drawers or pullout shelves, but it's not a significant difference. Some GW poster put together a comparison between frameless and face-framed and the differrence is alot more than than you would think at first. (Anyone got the link ?) For illustration purposes they compared a 12" wide base cabinet in the two styles, and assumed 3/4" thick box construction, 1/2" thick drawer boxes, 1/2" wide side mounted slides, and 2 inch face frames. With frameless the drawers ended up with an usable internel width of 12 - 2 x (3/4 + 1/2 + 1/2) = 8 1/2" vs for face-framed the drawers ended up with an usable internel width of 12 - 2 x (2 + 1/2 + 1/2) = 6" So if you want the full-overlay look, my opinion is you should go with frameless cabinets. Also regarding your daughter slamming the doors, I have seen posts about something called "blumotion for doors" which attach to the hinges (which I believe must be blum brand) which eases the door closed.

This came up in the fall and I'll link the thread below. Go about 2/3 the way down and you'll see cjc123's kitchen with both. I am doing frameless full overlay for my lower cabs and inset for my upper. For my cabinet maker (amish) it was 10% less to do frameless and 10% more to do inset so I came out ahead (I have many more lower than upper cabinets). I wanted frameless on the lower cabinets anyway to eek out a little more space in my pullouts. By the way, my upper cabinets are 13" deep, which will offset the space lost by the inset doors. Here is a link that might be useful: Overlay or inset cabinets?

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.