Deciding what type of cabinetry to install in your home is not as straight forward as it may seem. There are many choices and decisions to be made – all of which can affect the overall function and feel of your home. This design series aims to make you knowledgeable on the topic of cabinetry, so that you can make informed decisions when making selections for your Forever Home.
Frameless cabinet design, also sometimes referred to as Euro style, is the European way of making cabinets. Here in the US, our traditional way of manufacturing cabinets is Face Framed style, also simply called Framed. There are advantages to both styles. Let’s take a look at the differences.
FRAMELESS
In Frameless design, each cabinet is built as its own stand-alone box. Each cabinet has four sides, a top, a bottom, and a back. This makes for a very rigid unit.
The door is attached directly to the cabinet box with a concealed European hinge, and the door is sized such that it covers the entire box. In runs of multiple cabinets, the cabinets are attached together with screws or bolts through the sides.
Euro hinge example – note it mounts on the box. The hinge is completely concealed when the door is closed.
Frameless cabinets were used in this Southern Living Design House breakfast nook. Notice how there is just a tiny gap between each door and drawer? Storage space is optimized with this design.
Frameless kitchen cabinets were used in this modern kitchen example.
Another Frameless cabinet example with sleek black cabinetry.
Frameless, or Euro, cabinet design
Frameless cabinets with bead board detailing
FACE FRAME
In Face Frame construction, there is an additional element added, the face frame. For groups where there are multiple cabinets together, instead of each cabinet having its own side panels, the side panel is shared. The face frame is added to provide rigidity to the cabinet. The face frame may be seen when drawers and doors are closed. Let’s look at some examples.
Face Framed cabinets – notice the visible trim between each door and drawer?
Face Framed cabinetry example. By the way, these are “inset”, meaning door and drawer fronts are flush with the face of the cabinet.
Face Framed island cabinetry
In case you’re not seeing what I’m talking about, here I’ve highlighted the exposed trim part of the Face Frame cabinets.
This London kitchen has Face Framed cabinetry – again notice the visible frame between each door and drawer? That’s a dead giveaway that they’re Face Framed style. (By the way, these are also inset.)
In this Face Framed cabinetry example, it’s easy to see that there is space between each drawer and door. These doors & drawers are not inset, but rather overlay (meaning on top of the cabinet frame). These are “partial overlay”, meaning quite a bit of the trim (or frame) is seen between each door and drawer.
Face Framed cabinets fit the style of this traditional home in Connecticut.
This one is tricky! These are actually Face Framed cabinets, though it’s hard to tell by looking. Notice there is a small gap between each door, so you might think they’re Frameless. But if you look at the top and bottom, you can see that they’re face framed. The doors are made bigger, such that they cover up most of the frame behind them.
Face Framed cabinetry with partial overlay doors.
PROS AND CONS
Face Framed cabinetry may have added strength and rigidity due to the additional framing on the cabinet boxes.
Face Framed cabinetry can have inset, full overlay, or partial overlay doors – so you have some options to choose from.
Face Framed cabinets have to use smaller drawers, because the drawers have to clear the face frames.
Frameless cabinetry gives full access to the box contents because there is not additional trim or framing in the way.
Frameless cabinetry is usually made with thicker box construction, giving these cabinets sufficient strength and rigidity.
Only one type of door can be used with Frameless design: full overlay (i.e. the doors are big enough to cover the entire opening of the box).
Because the doors and drawers are usually larger with Frameless design, you have more usable storage space.
Because there are less materials used, generally Frameless cabinets are least expensive, though depending on quality of materials used they can be as much or more than Face Framed.
Face Framed tend to cost more than Frameless, again because more material is used. Though, this is not always the case; low quality Face Frame can cost much less than high quality Frameless.
