Choosing cabinets for your new kitchen can be a bit overwhelming - stock vs. custom-made, wood vs. stainless steel, natural finishes vs. painted finishes - the list of choices seems endless! Narrow down your preferences one at a time, and you'll soon find that choosing the perfect cabinets is as easy as pie!

Budget

Whenever you start any construction or remodeling project, your first step should be to decide what you want to spend. In kitchen projects, especially, costs can quickly spiral out of control with one upgrade here, another there, and just one more over here! After you have decided what your overall budget is, cut that amount in half. This should be your cabinet budget. It sounds excessive, given that you may also need to purchase appliances, flooring and countertops, but cabinets are typically the biggest financial investment in a kitchen.

Stock or Custom

You can purchase stock cabinets off a home center's showroom floor, or order custom cabinets with exactly the features you want. With stock cabinets, we found a reasonable selection of woods, styles, and finishes. Most manufacturers offer stock cabinet lines in traditional (face frame) and frameless construction, but carry only the most commonly used sizes and drawer and door configurations.

This standardization and limited selection means stock cabinets cost less and are readily available. It also means that if you have an odd-size space in your kitchen, you'll need to order filler strips to close in the gaps.

Custom cabinets, as the name implies, are built to fit your particular kitchen space. Because cabinet widths vary, you won't find filler strips (and wasted space) in a custom installation. You also have a wider selection of woods, styles, finishes, and options, but these features boost the overall cost. Some manufacturers offer semi-custom cabinets that give you the best of both worlds. These units are standardized, but come in a wider range of sizes, materials, and styles than stock cabinets. This gives a kitchen designer greater flexibility to work within the given space and your budget.

Most home centers and cabinet distributors have dedicated designers and computerized planning software that lets them create different options with a few clicks of the mouse. Programs like these help tally up the costs so you can see how far you've strayed from budget reality.

Cabinet Anatomy

While custom cabinet sizes may vary, cabinets are generally built to standardized heights and depths. Upper cabinets are 12"-deep and range in width from 9" to 48" (in 3" increments). Standard height is 30", but you can install 36"- or 42"-tall cabinets to gain extra storage if your kitchen ceiling height permits the taller units.

Base cabinets are typically 24"-deep and 34-1/2"-high, so a 1-1/2"-thick countertop brings the final counter height to 36" -- an industry standard for cabinets and appliances. Base cabinet widths generally mirror the width of the upper cabinets above them (9" to 48") and can include all drawers or a door and drawer configuration. Visual proportions dictate that door width never exceeds door height, so wider cabinet units will always have two or more doors.

If you want extra counter or storage space, you can get 30"-deep base cabinets, but use 15"-deep upper cabinets to keep everything proportionally appealing. Tall utility cabinets, often used as pantries or broom closets, are available in 84", 90", and 96" heights, and come in standard wall or base cabinet depths.

These standard dimensions apply to both framed and frameless-style cabinets. Traditional framed cabinets have a face frame that provides a great deal of structural support to the cabinet. Door hinges mount to the frame and doors and drawer fronts typically overlay the frame.

Frameless (European-style) cabinets  are basically open boxes usually built from 5/8"-thick melamine-covered particleboard. Since this style lacks a face frame, the door hinges mount directly to the cabinet sides to give wide-open access to the interior space. Because they lack the face frame, the boxes get their structural strength from the thicker material used in the sides, back, and bottom, which typically are joined with glued dowels.
You have dozens of options when it comes to accessorizing your cabinets. The combination of accessories you choose depends on your budget, needs, and the designer's creativity. Regardless of which accessories you select, you'll need to make choices in the following major categories:

Materials: While oak is still popular, we found that hickory, maple, and cherry have gained favor for frames, doors and drawer fronts. Birch was also available, but not as universally. Cabinet interior surfaces are often covered with wood-grain vinyl, although maple and birch veneer are also widely used.

Finishes: Manufacturers offer a range of natural finishes, as well as frosted and brightly colored tints. Many frameless styles feature Thermo-foil finish -- a thin, colored plastic film that is heat-molded and glued to a medium-density fiberboard (MDF) core.

Door styles:  Doors fall into three basic categories: flat panel, raised panel, and slab. The first two have rail-and-stile frames, and the upper rail may have an arch or crown shape. Slab doors are single panels of glued-up solid or veneered stock. Doors may be inset, partially overlay the frame or case, or conceal it (full overlay).

Door panels: While most doors come fitted with flat or raised wood panels, glass inserts present another option. Styles include multiple panes separated by mullions, stained glass, and leaded glass. You can even have the glass etched with your monogram.

Add-on moldings:  Many manufacturers offer optional trim moldings to give your cabinetry a refined look. Most manufacturers offer suggestions for using these moldings in various combinations to achieve different looks.

Appliance panels: To make appliances blend into the kitchen landscape, you can add wood door panels to match the cabinet doors.

By knowing what to look for in construction and materials, you can get the most cabinet for the money, and maybe have enough left over to work a few fancy extras into the plan.

Cabinets by Wood Type

Cherry

Cherry Wood Cabinets

Cherry wood cabinets, with a fine to medium grain pattern, provide an elegant look that is suitable for contemporary or traditional styling. It is moderately hard and strong, and resists both warping and checking. While usually pinkish-brown in color, there are also shades of off-white, green, and even gray. An American classic, cherry darkens beautifully with age and contains occasional knots, which gives it a unique beauty.

Maple

Maple Wood Cabinets

Cabinets in maple, a strong hardwood known for its close, uniform grain. Treasured by furniture and cabinet makers for years, the fine texture of maple lends itself well to both contemporary or traditional styling. Maple wood might occasionally include curly or wavy variations in the grain pattern. Colors range from light tan or cream to yellow to light reddish-brown.

Oak

Oak Wood Cabinets

The prominent open grain pattern and textured surface of oak cabinets make it a natural choice for those interested in a more traditional or casual country look. This hardwood is heavy-grained and durable, and its visible characteristics include mineral streaks and pin knots, with it's attractive red or white oak color tones.

Birch

Birch Wood Cabinets

Birch is a subtle contemporary and close-grained hardwood, whose colors go from cream to reddish-brown. Its texture is fine and even, and the grain is often straight but can also come in wavy or curly patterns, mirroring maple. With a smooth paintable surface, birch can be stained to resemble mahogany or walnut, but is typically at its best when left natural and sealed with a clear coating.

Thormofoil

Thermofoil Cabinets

Milled from vinyl wrapped material over fiberboard, thermofoil cabinets offer contemporary styling, exceptional durability and wear properties, as well as superior cleaning features. Thermofoil is applied to cabinetry frames, giving perfect door-to-frame match in comparison to painted frames, which vary in color.