Are you thinking of having kitchen cabinets or changing them? This is probably one of the most anxious decisions you are going to make for your kitchen. The reason is pretty obvious, cabinets can have a huge impact on your budget as well how your kitchen looks. There are so many things you can do for your kitchen designs, from faucets, lighting, and décor. These are all the pieces that complete the puzzle of a perfect kitchen—no detail is too small. However, with all these things, many people overlook a big part of the room—your kitchen cabinets. 

So before you take the next step to install new cabinets, make sure you know the different types of cabinets, and what we’re going to share with you are all beautiful options.

Where Do I Start?

Before we tackle different kitchen cabinets, the first thing you can do is to clearly obtain the goals you want to happen for your kitchen when it comes to how it looks and functions so you’ll be satisfied with the end result.  

Ask yourself these questions: 

• What are the things you don’t like about your current cabinets? 

Name what you dislike so you can look for solutions to those problems when it’s time to buy new ones. 

• Are you revamping for the purpose of reselling or do you plan on staying long term? 

You may want to use more of your budget on hardwearing construction and materials. Meanwhile, if you’re a real estate investor who’s interested in house flipping for a swift resale, you may want to limit your investment to a useful but more cost-effective cabinet style and construction. 

• How much storage space do you need? 

Try to assess what you currently have on your countertops or in other places where you place things that you’d rather store inside your cabinets. If you know how much “stuff” you need to accommodate, it will give you the answer to the amount of space you’ll need. 

Types of Kitchen Cabinets 

Shaker 

This is probably the most common style for cabinets, the Shaker-style. It consists of five pieces of flat-panel, creating a frame with four pieces and with a single flat centre panel as the fifth piece. This trend is popular until today since it’s very simple and has a classic look that they offer to either a traditional or modern design. 

Courtesy of Kitchen Design Blog 

These cabinets have some several trademarks characteristics including flat panelled doors with rail frames, sturdy construction with quality wood, and utilitarian designs. According to the best home builders, when it comes to Shaker-style kitchen cupboards, you’ll discover that they come in high-quality American wood, particularly that’s conventionally found in the northeastern United States. The types of woods that are used for shakers are hickory, quarter sawn oak, maple, and cherry. 

Flat-Panel 

This type of cabinet doors is also called as “slab”, which are simple yet stylish. The flat-panel kitchen cabinet style provides hard lines and minimalist form and lacks any expensive detail. The look of the simple flat-panel cabinet makes it a great fit for both contemporary and modern kitchens.   

Flat-panel cabinets can be built in plenty of various ways. The particular characteristic of slab cabinets is that the slab doors do not have any frames. Instead, they are directly solid slabs, reflecting their name. 

Louvered 

Courtesy of Pinterest

These cabinets come with horizontal wooden slats, with a heavy price tag. With a design that’s usually seen on furniture pieces, windows, and interior doors, louvered cabinets add a distinctive style to kitchen cabinetry. 

These cabinets are amazing for spaces the necessitate ventilation because most louvered doors have spaces between each slat. So keep this in mind when you’re looking for doors to a cabinet near a pantry cabinet, radiator, or clothes drying cabinet in a laundry room. 

Inset 

From its obvious name, inset-style cabinets are fabricated with an inset door set inside the cabinet frame instead of the outside of the frame like typical cabinet doors. Each door is constructed and designed using remarkable accurate measurements to make sure the wood sits inside the frame and opens and closes correctly. 

Inset kitchen cabinets and kitchen drawers are some of the most expensive on the market, but their classic look can last for a long time. Plus, they are easy to personalize to create custom cabinets with either beaded or non-beaded inserts. Beaded inset construction is fitted into the cabinet door itself. It gives an edge detail with fine craftsmanship. 

Put in mind that this cabinetry style normally required exposed hinges, as opposed to the usually concealed hinges that many other cabinet door styles feature. This can seem plausible in your budget, as unlike concealed hinges that are included in the cost of the cabinet box, you’ll need to buy two hinges per door for inset cabinets. 

Beadboard 

Known as “beads”, this is made of rows of vertical planks with indentation or ridges. In the middle of each blank, beadboard cabinetry provides a more unique look than some other styles, such as flat kitchen cupboards. The appearance of the beads gives this style cabinet door texture and assembles for a perfect country farmhouse or cottage style kitchen.  

The all-white beadboard cabinets have a beautiful design that will complete your cottage style kitchen, but take note that the cracks and crevasses on this style can be hard to clean and upkeep. 

Distressed 

Are you planning on having an antique-style kitchen? If so, you’ll want to go for distressed cabinets and drawers. This is widely available from most manufacturers since distressed-looking cabinets can come in any door style with the corners rubbed off and other distressing techniques are done to create a vintage feel.  

There’s a sure chance that a 15 to 20 per cent increase in price for a home builder to perform distressing techniques on your new cabinetry. 

Thermofoil 

Courtesy of The Spruce 

These kitchen cabinets are moulded out of medium-density fiberboard (MDF). This style door is covered in a type of plastic coating and baked under intense heat to be sealed. The procedure leads to a hardwearing and cost-effective kind of kitchen cabinetry. Normally mass-produced, thermofoil cabinets only come in solid colours and are imitation wood. Plus, these cabinets are also affordable! 

Although thermofoil kitchen cabinets are easy to maintain and moisture resistant, they also have poor heat resistance. This actually means that you should avoid installing them too close to a heat source, including your oven. If you do, the laminate may come loose from the veneer cover. 

Custom

However, if you don’t really like any of the kitchen cabinet door styles in stores that really works in your kitchen, then you may opt for custom cabinets. Just contact a craftsperson or a local designer to create your own personalized kitchen cabinet design. 

Author Bio: Ivandrea Ollero is a writer for Wincrest Bespoke, one of Sydney’s well-renowned home builders who offer custom-designed homes that blend elegance, space, and functionality to create a perfect match for families, suburbs, lands, and lifestyles. She is also a content crafter who researches and writes custom content about travel, fashion, finance, business, home improvements, health, and beauty in order to provide helpful information and tips for her readers. Ivandrea graduated from St. Scholastica’s College, Manila, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism in 2016.