Cabinet Terms & Definitions
Acrilux Door Style
Arilux Doors consist of a slab panel with a clear acrylix coating that looks like glass. It is the ultimate contemporary cabinet door style.
Beadboard
Cabinet paneling that incorporates beaded, routed detail and conveys relaxed, casual styling. Beaded styling adds texture and design to flat panel wood coverings, and is noticeably accentuated by glaze finishes.
Beaded Door
A flat panel cabinet door design that incorporates vertical beaded texture on the recessed panel area of the door. The wood door frame is more simple and constructed with cane and stick joinery.
Cope & Stick Cabinet Door
This describes the frame of the cabinet door. A frame with cope-and-stick styling will have butt joints. Sometimes these are also called mortise-and-tenon doors.
Flat Panel Door Style
A recessed center panel to a cabinet door or drawer design conveying Transitional, Shaker, or Arts and Crafts styling.
Framed Cabinets
The traditional framed cabinet has a front frame around the cabinet opening to which the door is attached. These are the most popular type of cabinets in the U.S. and are easier to install than frameless cabinetry because of their recessed end panels and rigid front frame. Framed cabinets are available in Traditional and Full Overlay styling which are explained below. Framed construction utilizes glue, staple and dowel or screw construction.
Frameless Cabinets
Frameless, or European-style cabinets, have no front frame. The doors are attached directly to the sides of the cabinet. Frameless cabinets, which are more contemporary in style, offer the advantage of completely unobstructed access to the cabinet interior because there is no front frame. Frameless construction utilizes pin and dowel construction.
Glaze Finish
An additional furniture cabinet finish treatment that is applied to improve a standard stain, enhance door detail and even-out wood type variation.
Glazes
The substances used to coat cabinetry that produces enhancements in door detail, wood color and tone. The addition of glaze finish treatments as an added finishing step has revolutionized the cabinet industry, bringing home fashion to the forefront of consumers’ minds. Glazes actually enhance and improve the beauty of the wood and the base finish color. Glaze treatments and techniques can vary from heavy to light. Lighter treatments lend themselves to a more subtle appearance.
Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF)
An engineered cabinet wood offering an extremely tight and smooth surface. Exceptionally stable, MDF is favored for laminating with thermofoils and melamine.
Melamine Laminate
This is a material used on cabinet drawer and doors surfaces to cover substrate of either particleboard or MDF. All laminate is durable and easy to clean. Melamine laminate is also a material used for fabricating countertops since it is thicker than vinyl and provides a hard, durable surface.
Mitered Cabinet Door Style
This also describes the frame of the cabinet door. A mitered door has a frame with mitered joints.
Mortise-and-Tenon Door Style
This refers to the frame of the cabinet door. A frame with cope-and-stick styling will have butt joints. Sometimes these are also called cope-and-stick doors.
Overlay
On framed cabinetry, overlay refers to the area in which the door and drawer cover the face frame. Most cabinet manufacturers offer Standard 1/2” Overlay and Full 1 1/4” Overlay options. The exposed front frame is referred to as the “reveal.” The reveal on Traditional Overlay cabinets is typically 1 inch.
Raised Panel Door
The center panel in a raised panel cabinet door is, well, raised. If you view a door from an angle, you’ll see the center panel rises up.
Recessed Door Panel
A flat panel held inside the perimeter of a cabinet door. A flat panel recesses between the stiles and rails.
Slab Door Panel
The slab styling cabinet doors allow for the natural beauty of the wood grain to stand out while letting other design elements in the room to become the focal point.
Soft Close Drawers
Soft close cabinet drawers are perfect component to full extension glides. Soft close steers even fully loaded drawers to a smooth, silent closure.
Stain
A stain is as basic as a wood cabinet finish can get. A stain allows the grain of the wood to show through. The same stain will look different on each specie. Right now, one of the most popular stains is Caramel on Maple.
Stain with Glaze
Some people choose to glaze a stain on their cabinets. Our artisans apply the glaze over the stain, and then wipe it off. On certain door parts, the glaze will remain or “hang up”. Profiles, moulding and other details on the door look great with a glaze. On some doors, there may not be many places for the glaze to “hang up”, yet the tone of the stain changes.
Thermofoil
Flexible, 100 percent solid-colored vinyl cabinet material. With adhesive on its underside, it is applied to smooth, engineered wood or MDF which has been formed into a door, drawer or molding design. It has solid, opaque coloration and is easy to clean and maintain. This is ideal for durable areas.
Tined Varnish
The best way to describe tinted varnish is to say it gives the cabinet a painted finish. When a tinted varnish is applied to Maple doors, the grain of the wood will not show through. On Oak wood, tinted varnish allows the grain to appear.
Tined Varnish with Glaze
Some people choose to glaze Tinted Varnish. Artisans apply the glaze over the Tinted Varnish, and then wipe it off. On certain cabinet door parts, the glaze will remain. Profiles, moulding and other details on the door look great with a glaze. On some doors, there may not be many places for the glaze to “hang up”, yet the tone of the Tinted Varnish changes.
Vinyl Laminate
This is a material used on the interior of all cabinetry as well as most cabinet exterior end panel surfaces. Typically 2 mils thick, it is very easy to clean. Since vinyl is thinner than melamine, it can easily wrap various cabinet components while providing the highest degree of resistance to moisture and abrasions.
Wood Veneer
A cabinet veneer is a thin piece (1/32 of an inch) of solid wood which is attached with glue to a substrate (usually “particleboard” in raised panel doors and “hardboard” in flat or recessed panel doors). Veneered components are more uniform in finish and grain consistency. Veneered center panels in doors provide stability by minimizing its shrinking and expansion in dry and moist climates thereby eliminating cracking and splitting.