Kitchen cabinets come in all shapes, sizes, and price ranges. Kitchen cabinets help to organize dry and can foods, spices, ingredients, appliances, utensils, dishes, etc. Most kitchen cabinets are sold through cabinet dealers and showrooms, home improvement centers, lumberyards and some kitchen appliance stores.
Kitchen cabinets can be as basic as wooden boxes and as advanced as modular units. They can be custom made or purchased as stock cabinets that are manufactured in standard sizes.
Most manufacturers offer base and wall cabinets in widths ranging from 9 inches to 48 inches at 3-inch increments. Upper cabinet heights run 12, 18 and 24 inches for over sinks and stoves and 30, 36 and 42 inches for above counters. In addition to offering many sizes, manufacturers also offer a wide variety of style and finishes from contemporary laminates to traditional hardwoods like oak and cherry. Most companies also offer several finishes on natural woods and offer standard modifications to their cabinets at an additional cost.
There are basically two kinds of kitchen cabinets — face frame and frameless. Almost 80% of the cabinets made by American manufacturers are face-framed. The front edge of a face-framed cabinet is made from hardwood; whereas, frameless European-style cabinets are made of panels finished on both sides and edged with a simple laminate banding.
Installation of kitchen cabinets is fairly easy and many dealers offer installation either by their own personnel or by independent installers. People well versed with woodwork can install their kitchen cabinets on their own and save some money.
