What is a Face Frame?

Looking around your kitchen, most of what you see are cabinet doors. But what is behind the doors?

There are two main styles of cabinet construction. The traditional style is known as “face frame”. This means that there is a solid wood, usually 3/4” thick frame applied to the face of the plywood box. Face frames serve several purposes:

1. The raw front edge of the plywood “case” (or box) is generally not considered a finished surface, so the face frame covers the edge and provides a smooth surface to apply paint or lacquer. It also helps protect the plywood from damage by splintering and moisture.

2. Face frames provide stiffness to help keep the case straight and square. This rigidity makes a perfectly level and plumb installation easier, and keeps your doors better aligned over time.

Alternately, a cabinet can be built without a face frame, and this style is known as “frameless”. Instead of a solid wood frame, frameless cabinets have a veneer of wood or plastic glued over the front edge of the plywood case. Frameless cabinets tend to be somewhat more economical, and allow easier access to the full space available inside the cabinet. When designing a more modern kitchen with tightly spaced doors, frameless is the preferred construction style.

Custom or Manufactured Cabinets...What's the difference?

As you begin your remodeling project, you will need to decide how your cabinets are made. Isn’t a cabinet just a box? Yes, but there are a lot of differences that will affect how your cabinets appear and endure over time.

There are essentially three styles of cabinet production:

1. Modular Cabinets

   These are what you might find in a lot of kitchen and bath showrooms or big-box stores. Sizes are limited to 3-inch increments in width, so there will be some awkward fillers to make them fit your space. Gaps between doors will be larger. Materials are typically particleboard or thin plywood. Least expensive option.

2. Semi-Custom Cabinets

   Cafe Cabinets offers a high-quality line of semi-custom cabinets, manufactured in the USA. They are made-to-order and can be ordered in any width, height and depth within a certain range. Door gaps are tighter, and in the case of our inset cabinets, are 3/32” on every door and drawer. All materials are solid wood or plywood and feature solid birch dovetailed drawer boxes and Blum hardware. Ultra-durable conversion varnish finish is standard in a wide array of colors and stains.

3. Fully Custom Cabinets

   Sometimes you just can’t get the look you want in a manufactured cabinet. Cafe Cabinets has the unique ability to build cabinets to the exact style and dimensions that you need. Often we use semi-custom cabinets to keep the cost affordable, and add in custom cabinets or components to achieve our customer’s design goals.