I am not a KD but frameless dominates in our market (Canada). Our veteran installer from HD Canada who handle Kraftmaid (one of the only big US lines selling face frame cabinetry available in Canada) told me that correct installation was more crucial with frameless because without the face frame frameless cabinets are more dependant on the surrounding cabinets for strength. He was really big on the 5\8 solid backs on the product my Mom purchased but told me they would still definitely rack if they were not installed correctly. We have plenty of wonky older homes in Canada with frameless kitchens, as long as you have a good installer who knows the product frameless shouldn't be anymore difficult to install than face frame cabinetry.

In my opinion the US market is a little adverse to frameless so you will get industry folks who will talk it down (not to suggest that this is the case with l_w_o but old school cabinetmakers may be a different story). My Mom had horrible builders grade frameless cabs in her condo that were installed on concrete with wood screws that never racked (they were 20 years old when she replaced them) so I wouldn't worry too much.

Depends on your price point but KitchenCraft (usually a very affordable semi-custom product), Cabico, Luxor and Fabritec are all excellent Canadian frameless lines available in the US.

You'll be fine.

There is nothing magical about framed cabinets and uneven walls. Most cabinets (of any sort) don't bend or otherwise adapt themselves to uneven walls. My favorite wall in our kitchen bows out in the center like the wall was a Frisbee, but the plaster is still firmly attached to the lathe. It's frameless stack of cabinets have been happily sitting there, being my pantry.

Cabinets of reasonably decent construction will tolerate a lot. A crappy cabinet will come apart even if your walls are straight. If your walls are so terrible that your installer starts muttering epitaphs, framed cabinets won't help you!

Whichever kind you get, with uneven walls (and yours can't be worse than mine) I'd just recommend getting plywood boxes, so that your installer can scribe the sides to the walls nice and tight without having to use those ugly scribe moldings.

can someone please explain why plywood boxes would be better then any other kind of 5/8 construction?

I currently have frameless cabinets with slab doors installed in my 100 yr old kitchen...my walls are not plumb. The installer dealt with this by using 2" fillers wherever the cabinet butt up against a wall for both base and wall cabinets. They were installed 12 years ago and look as good as the day they went in.

There was a lot of debate here last year about wood v particle board boxes and there's a thread going right now. I wouldn't pay for a plywood upgrade unless a wood cabinet interior was important to me. My MDF boxes haven't failed me yet. We lived in Germany for 6 years and my husband's family is in England and I never saw a kitchen in either of those countries that had wood or framed cabinets. And believe me, they weren't low quality or cheap.

Because the drawer and door fronts are flush with the box with frameless you don't see the vertical seams of the filler. Even if this were custom frameless cabinetry we would have need a filler between the drawer base and the wall so the drawers don't rub.

We needed filler here for handle clearance so the pull outs in the pantry would operate properly but you can't see the seam because it is concealed by the door:

Plywood is rarely offered as an upgrade on frameless because frameless requires 1\2 to 3\4 (usually 5\8) material rather than the 3\8 often used for face frame cabinetry (cost increase would be very dramatic). Particleboard is more dimensionally stable than plywood so it is much better suited to frameless construction (it doesn't move with condition changes and pull at the joints).

I have no idea if plywood is better; I just know that most finish carpenters would much rather scribe wood than furniture board/particle board/mdf. YMMV.

My walls are so out-of-plumb, so not-square, that you can see it with your naked eye, no measuring tools needed. The installation of my frameless cabinets was uneventful and easy. Kitchen contractors work with non-square walls every day; any contractor with a decent amount of experience can install frameless cabs in homes that are out of plumb. I am very happy with my frameless cabinets, especially the drawers, as I increased my storage space enormously with the frameless, even though I kept the same layout as my old framed cabinets that they replaced.

BTW, my ceiling also differed about 1-1/2 inches from one side of the room to the other. I took my cabinets to the ceiling, with a small crown molding, and there was no problem at all with that part of the installation either. Again, my contractor had worked with countless uneven ceilings; it was all in a day's work to him.

This forum is great - I was in Home Expo yesterday and raved to a husband and wife (doing research for new construction in another state) about the knowledge of the participants and the expertise and information available.

I'm not as nervous about the frameless option now. I've been looking at the KitchenCraft, Kraftmaid Venica, Hanssam, and Apple Valley Woodworks. I am also looking at the Kraftmaid (framed) with the slab door. I want to get the most bang for my buck, and at the same time want this kitchen to last until at least the kids are out of college (18 years - yikes).

circuspeanut - I have been perplexed by the plywood box issue and think I understand the scribing issue. This is another topic I am going to discuss with my contractor.

cheri127 - I will make note of what your installer did and ask my contractor about his plan. It is good to know a solution just in case the issue presents itself.

caryscott - Thanks for the photos, it helps to see the cabinets with the filler. I spoke with the KitchenCraft people yesterday and they were very helpful.

shannonplus2 - It seems that my ceilings are one height in the original part of the house and another in the addition added by the PO in the 1980's... I haven't measured where we will be relocating the kitchen, but I'm curious to see if the ceiling is uniform in that space....

We are on day 2 of the renovation and the contractor has already encountered unforseen "issues" having nothing to do with the kitchen..... If this keeps up, I will be constructing kitchen cabinets from cardboard boxes and using a hot-plate as my new stove.

Another person here with frameless cabinets and un-square walls. The expertise of your contractor is KEY. I can't emphasize that enough. My contractor was recommended to me by my cabinet store, and had years of experience with uneven walls. The difference between easy installation and problematic one is the experience of your installer. My contractor had all kinds of tricks up his sleeve to deal with my out of whack walls and ceiling. I think he liked the challenge, since he was smiling when he noted the unevenness, and that he'd find it no problem.

Love my frameless cabs BTW!

I really liked them at our local KitchenCraft dealer unfortunately we couldn't afford the upgrade from their standard stapled drawers which we didn't want to dovetail.

Just to be clear you cannot scribe frameless cabinets, the doors are flush with the box if you scribe the box you would have to scribe the door. With face frame you sometimes get an integrated filler but frameles doesn't require this because the seam for the filler is pretty much concealed by the doors or drawer fronts so a it isn't a problem to use separate piece for the filler (the filler could be made from anything). Installers are very accustomed to scribing filler no matter what it is made of. Near as I can tell most frameless cabinets are consructed from furniture grade particleboard and I am sure the KD's around here could advise on the % of face frame that are particleboard vs ply but I would guess at least 60% are particleboard.

I was originally looking at Hanssem cabinets (frameless). In fact, that's the cabinet that inspired my wide shaker doors. I thought Hanssem had the coolest-looking doors!

The KD said that if I got Hanssem, I should get plywood. She'd gotten not-such-great feedback from contractors about the quality of their particleboard, but she thought the plywood was fine. I saw a Hanssem display in another store that had been up for quite some time (I'm guessing) in a window display - the finish had faded and really looked quite bad. The cabinets only have a 5-year warranty compared to 10 years or lifetime from other companies.

Just things that concerned me. (I ended up getting Kraftmaid for reasons having nothing to do with quality - I just liked the color!)

Get frameless with 3/4" plywood construction, solid wood doors. The contractor will figure out the unevenness of the walls using fillers/panels that you should be able to order from the manufacturer of the cabinets.