Kitchen Cabinet Ideas...
Nothing but the best

During the kitchen design stage, always keep your kitchen cabinet ideas in the back of your mind, as that will determine mostly what your kitchen will look like after the fact. The kitchen cabinets will also cost about 50% of your complete kitchen budget.

It all may seem a bit overwhelming, but if you approach your cabinet design project with a level head and you narrow down your preferences one at a time, you will soon have the desired set of kitchen cabinets.

It is important that you use the best affordable quality materials for you cabinets, as with anything else, quality varies a lot depending on the materials used. Most cabinets are constructed from either plywood, particle board or fibre board.

So the first thing that you must consider, when contemplating which kitchen cabinets you will decide upon ultimately, is your budget.

Kitchen Cabinet Ideas....

Kitchen cabinets, whether it is standard, semi-custom or custom-build, are constructed in two ways:

• Framed, or
• Frameless.

Framed Kitchen Cabinets Framed cabinets have a frame installed on the front of each box. The doors are attached as either a full or a partial overlay and the hinges are showing. On the photo alongside one can clearly see the hinges and it shows how the doors fit inside the frame. Note how the designer incorporated the kitchen cabinet into the roof design. It makes it so much easier to then include the lighting, as she has done here, and the overall effect is just stunning.

Frameless Kitchen Cabinets Frameless cabinets have no frame, which makes the inside of the cupboard more accessible. With frameless cabinets however, the doors can only be attached as a full overlay, with the hinges concealed. This type of cabinet is best used in modern kitchens as they have beautiful, clean and clinical lines to create that "smooth" look, if I may call it that.

The next step is to select the exterior finishes. Popular exterior finishes include:

1. solid wood,
2. wood veneers,
3. plywood (laminated),
4. melamine (low density laminate), and
5. supawood (medium density fibreboard).

Solid wood can either be used in its natural form and colour, or it can be transformed and changed to look like something more exquisite. In South Africa we have a lot of pine, which is a very fast growing wood, and not very popular in its natural form. But because it is not indigenous, and relative cheap, it has many uses in a kitchen.

Personally I prefer solid woods. There is just nothing that touches that look and feel of solid wood in a kitchen. So I always try to influence the decision of friends and family to include solid wood. No matter in what form or shape.

Doorknobs can make an immense difference to the look and feel of your kitchen cabinets, so take good care when selecting them. They must fit into your overall kitchen design and doorknobs can bring the textures of the cabinets and the other finishes in you kitchen beautifully together.

I will add more and more kitchen cabinet ideas as I progress and learn from my experiences, so remember to return to this page in the future for inspiration for all your kitchen cabinet ideas.

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