By: James Mahoney
Kitchen cabinet doors can add to the beauty of your kitchen. The appearance of your kitchen cabinets rests on the quality of your cabinets. You can therefore completely change the look of your kitchen simply by changing the doors of your kitchen cabinets. Good kitchen cabinet design is also important if you want to get the most storage use possible out of your available storage space, and this should also be the goal in the design of any kitchen.
Kitchen Cabinet Wood Types
Kitchen cabinets can be made from dozens of woods including Oak, Maple, Pine, Cherry, Hickory, Poplar, Alder and Birch. Hickory and Oak are the hardest and the heaviest. Cherry, Birch and Maple are considered to be well suited to cabinetry. Less expensive and more plentiful woods such as Alder and Poplar work best with glazed finishes used in creating an 'antique' look. Pine is a soft wood that can be more prone to dents and scratches.
There are three types of cabinet door shapes, slab, recessed panel, and raised panel.
There are many cabinet design styles to choose from. Four of the more common cabinet design styles are: traditional, country, shaker and contemporary.
Kitchen Cabinet Construction
Kitchen cabinets are generally constructed using a combination of these kinds of woods, as well as particleboard or plywood.
Some cabinet doors are made of solid wood, which is generally more expensive. Although solid wood and plywood kitchen cabinet doors are regarded a stronger and thicker, particleboard is considered less likely to expand.
When selecting kitchen cabinets it is a good ideas to start by defining your style. Will your kitchen design be more along the lines of a traditional look with raised panel doors and a lot of ornate molding? Or will it be more of a rustic look with knotty pine and more simple detailing?
There are three main types of kitchen cabinets. These include, in-stock kitchen cabinets, semi-stock kitchen cabinets, and custom kitchen cabinets.
While custom-cabinet doors are more expensive than the do-it-yourself variety, the advantage is that you are able to get exactly what you want at a very high level of craftsmanship. You can tailor the cabinets to the exact specifications and needs of your kitchen.
There are also several styles of cabinet doors that can be related to one or two of the overall design styles. Doors for a custom kitchen cabinet can be flat or frameless, raised, curved, simple, or carved.
