The exterior of cabinet boxes are the same material as the interior of the boxes. You have to make a choice as to how to upgrade the exposed sides to appear to be the same material as the doors. Many times a thin veneer called a skin is field applied by the installer. That's usually the cheapest approach. Another way is to have the exposed sides of the cabinets finished in plywood in the same species as the door and then stained and finished to match. This is the approach that I personally use the most often as the factory finish matches, and the sides are flush. You can also apply a door panel to the sides to give it the same appearance as the rest of the doors to your cabinets. This can be done as a field applied accessory, or it can be done in the production stage. In a kitchen with more detailed doors, I prefer to choose this approach to finish off the exposed sides.

Thanks GreenDesign. Our diagram didn't make it into the first post. I'll try it again. As you'll hopefully see in the diagram, they've added a 3/4 inch thick "veneer finished end panel." Why not just put the veneer on the cabinet itself instead of adding a separate panel with a veneer?

It certainly has been an education, so I get your point. We've toured their shop and I think they get the drawer boxes from another local shop, but the drawer fronts and everything else are truly custom. With each updated diagram, things change by 16ths of an inch. And from final engineering drawings to delivery will be less than two weeks, so I'm guessing they do most of it in their shop.

That said, thanks for the explanation. It will help me in the phone call we'll be having in the next day or two.

I think end panels really give a beautiful furniture look to cabinets. It just makes them seem complete. I was adamant about having them and it was well worth it. It just fills out the boxes to be uniform and they seem beefier. I love how they look with the end panels. To me it makes a huge difference. We had some cabinet makers tell us that their wood was so nice it didn't need end panels but it wasn't just the look of the wood but how it filled out the space at the end of the cabinets to look filled in and finished. End panels were important to me but everyone is different! YMMV

Perhaps this will help you. In our kitchen, we have one cabinet that ends the run on one side and is at the sink opening in the other. So the outside has end panels

The sink side does not

Color difference is due to the fact the flash went off for the first shot, not for the second, but it is the same cabinet.

Thanks for the feedback.

If I heard him correctly, our cabinet guy said the end panels will extend out to cover the sides of the drawer fronts and doors. If that's true, it may give it a cleaner look, particularly boxing in either side of the Miele convection oven and steam oven.