Exploring Natural Wood Grain Shaker Style Kitchen Cabinets
This past week, we started looking at natural grain wood cabinet doors. Unlike a natural wood cabinet door with a lacquer coating, these doors expose and highlight the grain of the natural wood. In most cases that means that the wood itself will be from prime cut or select areas of the wood and will be continuously solid.
Base cabinets are commonly 34.5 inches tall. With a 3 cm countertop which is roughly 1.5 in thick or an actual wood countertop which is generally close to exactly 1.5 in thick, the net height of the top of the countertop ends up being roughly 36 in above the height of the finished floor. This is a pretty ergonomic height for most people. It’s tall enough to keep kids in little animal type pets from jumping up on top of the countertop, in most cases, yet it’s not so tall that it’s uncomfortable, even for short people. For tall people, it works okay, as well.
We have had clients in the past, who were particularly tall, over about 6’2”, request their cabinets be custom modified to be even a slight bit taller. That makes it harder for resale, but these particular clients wanted to live in that house for the rest of their lives.
This particular cabinet installation has a few interesting details. One of them is a built-in wine rack. Unlike typical wall cabinets, the built-in wine rack is only available in a non-custom option, in specific sizes. Typical wine bottles are about 750 milliliters. The total rack here can fit about 32 bottles when fully loaded. When fully loaded, this built-in shelving may be carrying around 75 to 80 lb. That’s a significant amount of weight, but most cabinets, even ones built like this, can hold and support that amount of weight.
Another one of the neat details of this particular installation is that the cabinet doors above the wine rack have blackboard panels set inside of the stile and rail frame. Unlike European cabinet doors which are generally built without an outer frame around the edge of the door, this particular door has both a frame around the outer face of the cabinet and a frame around the door edge itself.
The picture below shows a view of the base cabinets doors. These doors are panel doors which are common in American style kitchen cabinets. The outer edge of the door is built with a dado joint recess on the inside of the outer door leaf frame.
The door is strengthened by this type of joint which is also referred to assist a cope and stick joint. The rail, in this type of joint, is called a cope. The rail is called a stick. This type of dado joint, at the sides of the stick, is inserted into the top and bottom of the cove. The shape of the joint interconnects the separate pieces of wood and allows more surface area to bond in an adhered connection.
Another unique element of this particular kitchen set up is that there is a built-in open cubby space next to the refrigerator. It is just like the other cabinets but is intentionally left without doors. In most cases, cabinet doors are used to hide away all the small things used in a kitchen. There are a few practical reasons why an open cubby might still be useful. It could be used as a place to store and display cookbooks, for example. You might want to have the splines of the books visible as they would be on a bookshelf.
It might also be a perfect place to store frequently use small appliances like a coffee bean grinder, air fryer, and a bullet mixer. Those things, for example, might be used every single day, and therefore better to have there at arms reach, in the open.
When you look at a more traditional raised panel design, as shown in the picture below, you can see that the style shown above is much more minimalist and simple. The traditional style has several more details and lines that are part of the raised panel. These different lines and details, cut into the wood, add a level of embellishment but they also make the cabinet look busier and more historic or antique, even though the finishes and color of the wood used in the cabinets are not that different.
Dupont Kitchen & Bath Can Help
As dedicated and local DC metropolitan kitchen and bath builders and installers, we pride ourselves on turning your visions into reality. Your kitchen and bathrooms can reflect your unique style and be designed with personalized aesthetics. It can be a process from creative designs to the realization of your dream space. Specializing in kitchen and bath construction, we bring expertise and skills to every project. If you’re contemplating a renovation, upgrade, or modernization in the local market, we’re happy to be your team. Consult with us, and we can start together on a path to redefine and elevate your DC living experience.
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