8 Popular Cabinet Door Styles in Today’s Kitchens
Shaker Cabinet Style
The Shaker-style cabinet door is the most common door style in kitchens today. This five-piece flat-panel style has a frame made from four pieces and a single flat center panel for the fifth piece.
Shaker gets its name from the distinctive Shaker furniture style, which uses simple, clean lines and emphasizes utility. Shaker-style doors became popular because their simple style lends itself to just about any decor – from contemporary to traditional – with variations in wood species, stains, paint colors and hardware. This classic style can work with a variety of budgets, depending on the wood used.
Flat Panel Cabinet Style
This door style allows for a clean look with minimal detailing on the door. This can also be paired up with inset styling to allow some character in your room, but not overwhelming. Flat panel has become more popular in painted cabinetry and can serve as a clean template.
Inset Cabinet Style
Although this style tends to be one of the most expensive on the market, it’s a classic look that’ll last for generations. The inset door gets its name because it is set inside of the cabinet frame – typical cabinet doors rest on the outside of the frame. The door is designed and constructed with extremely precise measurements so that it nests inside the frame and opens and closes properly, even when the wood expands and contracts.
Hinges can be exposed – in a complimentary color – or hidden for a furniture-style look.
Slab Door Cabinet Style
Slab doors offer a clean look that is often seen in contemporary, modern, mid-century and European style designs. Bonus: slab doors are easy to keep clean!
Slab doors can be made from wood veneers, foils and textures, or high-gloss acrylics, painted smooth on ultra-stable MDF/MDH material, or stained solid hardwood panels (glued together for stability, and sometimes with battens on the back for support).
Foils, Textures, Mattes & Acryllic Cabinet Style
These doors are molded out of MDF (medium-density fiberboard), wrapped in a plastic-type coating and then baked under intense heat to create an impervious seal. Durable and cost effective, they come in solid colors from matte to high-gloos and imitation wood grains.
Newer technologies and materials are a vast improvement over 1980s-style thermofoil cabinets.
Raised Panel Style
Raised panel doors offer an added dimension to your cabinetry design. Center panels are created with a variety of profiles, from stylishly simple to quite complex. These doors work well in a more formal or traditional setting, and are an excellent choice if you would like the cabinetry to be a focal point of the room.
Glazed and Distressed Cabinet Style
If you’ve always dreamed of having an antique-style kitchen, then you’ll love the glazed or distressed-looking cabinets available from most manufacturers. Dark glazes are applied and wiped off to highlight detail in the cabinet profiles and moldings. Painted brush stokes can add a craftsman-made look. Wire brushing techniques add a unique texture. Or go all the way, and opt to have the corners rubbed off or have other distressing techniques done for that age-old feeling. All this extra work will cost you, though; there’s usually a 15 to 20 percent up-charge for a trades-person to actually destroy your brand-new doors.
Beaded Style
Love cottage style? It doesn’t get more cottage chic than beadboard. The center panel of the cabinet doors in this style are made to look like traditional beadboard paneling. Beadboard was used in the past as a decorative wall treatment before plaster, drywall and paint became common.
Custom Style
Create a door style that suits your taste and also allows you to transform a room into your own. This means ordering cabinetry from one of our custom lines in order to get the look you want.