Custom Cabinetry Specifications, construction and a tutorial how to build cabinets without heavy industrial equipment in your small shop or at home.

The construction method you pick for custom cabinet projects will dictate how to set up cabinetry specifications, to build the cabinet parts, and assembling components.

If you are a beginner in cabinet making, this page can be a helpful tutorial. We are offering cabinetry construction specifications and typical cabinet materials we would like to use in our own living spaces. There are many reasons why and you will find the answers on this page. Our special thanks to KCDw Cabinetry Software.

Do you wish for yourself to have only the best and healthy products for your home? So do we. This is why we prefer formaldehyde free plywood for our cabinet material. Assembling methods are simple - Butt joints are reinforced with construction staples and 45-50 mm hardened screws. This is why you can easily assemble cabinets in your garage, small shop, or even at home. We use minimum parts and a smart design that will contribute much to the cabinetry strength.

Construction Method Overview (Frameless Cabinetry)

Sides, Top, Bottom and Shelves are built from 3/4 plywood (actual thickness - 18.5 mm). Bottoms of Base and Tall cabinets are fastened to the sides and are full width (surprisingly, no one out of our system is building cabinets this way).

We like to use adjustable legs, but you can make toe boxes from leftover material. Backs are 1/4 plywood (5.5 mm), stapled with 1/2 plywood (12 mm) cleats (80 mm wide on top and bottom) and fastened with 50 mm (2") screws. Benefits: clean crisp interior, lighter weight, and a flawless installation.

All unfinished exposed sides will be covered with Side panels (flat finished plywood or matching doors). This will eliminate the need to veneer the exposed side of a cabinet with no finishing of assembled cabinets.

The image on the right shows real opening dimensions, frameless cabinets (base - one drawer, wall and tall) plywood 18.5 mm construction, #4 and #5 are side panels (door type).

Doors, Drawer Fronts and Panels Reveals

Our standard reveal between front parts is 3 +/- 0.5 mm and to achieve this, the entire process of construction design and manufacturing must be very precise.

An example is the image with door sizes on right. For joining cabinets - 1.5 mm side reveal on each cabinet. When joining to a column, filler... to maintain a 3 mm margin the reveal on side joining column or filler is increased to 3 mm.

Base and Tall Cabinet's bottom door reveal - 0 mm (flush with cabinet bottom; you can actually open the door with your toe).

All cabinets top door reveal of 5 mm, working just perfectly under countertops for bases, and under crown on tall and wall cabinets. Also, 5 mm reveal on the bottom of wall cabinets works well with our light valance system.

Small note - On the digital images, you many see (and maybe wonder why) panel #5 shows the crown return. This is because we make side panels wider than the box to line up with the profile on the edge of the door.

Drawer Box Construction (some finishing tricks)

If you do not count all premade options, we make two types of solid wood drawer boxes; dovetail and finger joint (fingerlap joint). They each are furniture standard recognized and hold their own benefits. Honestly, we can't tell you which one is stronger or more attractive.

The hardware manufacturers offer a metal drawer box construction or some kind of plastic-extruded profiles for the drawer boxes. As woodworkers, we reject them. This is a personal choice.

Follow our specifications and continue the cabinetry tutorial as you wish. We build drawer boxes from solid wood and finish them without bottoms. Only after applying finish, do we install our 12 mm (1/2") prefinished maple plywood bottoms. Anyone who ever sprayed a fully assembled drawer core will appreciate this small trick.

Our drawer box opens from the back to slide in the bottom (1/2" prefinished plywood) and is stapled to the box after finishing. The sides, front and back are 15 +/- 0.2 mm thick and are designed to work with most of the popular drawer slides ("Blum Tandem" soft close series is our preference).