I don't see how it is even remotely possible for them to rack. They are fastened to the walls and to each other plus they have countertop attached to the top side. they are just too solid!

Well, a really flimsy frameless cab (built with, say, low-grade 1/2" particle board and crummy connections) can eventually rack.

The vast majority of cabinets out there won't rack.

Framed cabinets tend to look more traditional to me.

The KD's here will probably be better able to speak to that more definitively but frameless dominates the market place in Canada and I have never heard that. I read somewhere where face frame cabinets are still a big part of your market in the US and in places like Consumer's Reports they still associate face frame construction with quality despite conceding that less expensive frameless product like Ikea and Mill's Pride actually performed quite well in their testing. Here face frame construction is generally thought of as being dated.

Attached link is a great overview on cabinetry which shoots down a few of the prevailing myths. With frameless I looked for solid backs, minimum 5\8 thick material all around, support between the gables at the toe kick and valances at the rear and front at the top (most of these features should prevent racking).

Here is a link that might be useful: great link to cabinet basics

I have frameless cabinets, almost 5 years now, with no problems whatever. They are the standard in Europe, and have been for years, so I think the kinks have been worked out.

As ccoombs1 said, it would be very difficult. Maybe a cheapo free standing cabinet, but not kitchen cabinets bolted together and to the wall, unless the whole kitchen suddenly falls apart!

Sounds like the KD has an agenda - selling cabinets with face frames. You need to get what you want, after all it's your money, so stand your ground and if necessary, get a new KD.

Good luck.

Did it occur to no-one that the KD is referring to the wall cabinets, that are only "hung" from the back. They are always being subjected to torque forces because of this, and if not hung on perfect walls, they are leveled with shims, and should these shims shift, gravity takes over.
Further, since they are primarily particle board which, having no grain structure, is a weaker material than plywood (exception- PB is strong in compression, because the glues/resins makes it very hard), the fabulously increased weight of the material (beyond plywood) brings an additional burden to bear on the wall units. The grainless structure of composites relies entirely on the glue used to paste the particles together, and often the Load + Time = Warping.
Not to disrespect particle board or anything, it's just the physics of the situation.
Casey

A decent quality upper will have a solid back (versus hardboard and hanging rails) and will either be tongue and groove or dado assembled so the back panel slides in, so no it didn't occur to me. M-S or better grade particleboard has excellent dimensional stability and is less susceptible to warping than plywood. It will definitely be heavier. I thought racking refers to a twisting of the cabinet I don't see what your describing as racking - sagging or shifting would be equally undesirable but not the same.

The kitchen I tore out had frameless cabs which lasted 20+ years. And they were not even great quality cabinets. And they were made out of particle board. No problems with racking or warping or anything else, including the wall cabinets.

I now have Brookhaven frameless, installed Oct 2004 and am very happy with them.

Question: The KD who made this comment, does s/he sell frameless? Only reason I asked was because I had experiences with KDs/salespeople who sold framed only badmouthing frameless.

There are good quality frameless and bad quality frameless, just as there are good quality framed and bad quality framed, AND good quality installers and bad quality installers. So, yeah, there probably are some frameless cabs that will not last, and the same can be said about framed.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lowspark's List of framed & frameless manufacturers

lowspark,

Wow, great list. In Canada Thomasville is a frameless line, just shows how different the two markets are.

Thanks for all the comments. Caryscott - great site and extremely helpful.

I'm not sure why it didn't dawn on me earlier, but this KD does primarily sell framed cabinets (Showplace). I was interested in two other lines the website said they carried but they no longer deal with them. So I think the KD has a hidden agenda.

I've decided not to compromise and I'm going with frameless. It's what I've wanted because my kitchen is very small and every 1/2" counts and I like the clean line look.

Thanks!

Good decision. If you already have an idea of what you want, don't let someone talk you out of it. You are the one writing the checks....you deserve to have what you want.

I got it off of a thread here if I could remember who posted it I'd give them a shout out because it really covers the bases. In a small kitchen I don't think you will regret going frameless - these days more and more images of face frame cabinetry show full overlay doors and interior hinges which mimic the look of frameless without any of the benefits.

Goodness sombreuil_mongrel, you must have a terrible kitchen. My wall cabinets (plywood) are not only screwed into the studs on my walls, they are screwed together, so they really are not subjected to any torque. My base cabinets are also screwed together, with a granite countertop, so they are pretty sturdy too.

Now, I must admit, my old wall cabinets, with face frames, did eventually deform and the bottoms of the corner cabinets actually broke, and they were screwed to the wall and to each other. But they were poorly made of poor quality materials. That's one of the reasons I had to remodel my kitchen.

Excellent points, Sombreuil. With upper cabs, particularly, there is no real advantage to go with frameless; you don't gain any space. And there are good structural reasons to go with a framed cab. In a situation where you're worried about the last inch of usable space, the thing to do is go with full custom with no 'spacers' & limited partitions.

FWIW, I was in Menard's over the weekend, looking at the cabinet displays. All of the cabinets on the floor were framed cabinets. Most were full overlay & all of them had those awful Euro hinges that limit door swing to just a tad past 90 degrees. Great way to crease your skull if it's over the dishwasher.

Other advantages of frameless are ease of access (your not working around the lip of the face frame or the center stile) and ease of cleaning. Standard Euro hinges are usually around 110 not 90 and you can get them so they open wider if you wish but having the doors swing open far enough to bash into the doors around them may not be much of an advantage. I couldn't agree more that faux frameless appears to be the big thing in face frame cabinetry at the moment, perhaps the last gasp of an outdated construction style headed for the premium specialty market along with inset.

Custom cabinetry is wonderful but generally not that economical. You can increase your usable space and use a stock frameless cabinetry line or get the same usable space (though still have reduced and awkward access to it) with custom face frame cabinetry for at least 30% more. If you like the look of frameless why not get the real the real thing?

Like lowspark my Mom has had crappy builders grade frameless in her condo for 20 years and their still on the walls, no racking no nothing just ugly as sin. We have plenty of trees in Canada and a booming cabinetry industry but you don't see much face frame cabinetry on the showroom floors anymore even in custom shops.

Momj47,
My kitchen sucks, my house sucks, my cabinet-building abilities suck, my job sucks. If I had a dog, I'd kick it. My whole life sucks, except the meager ration of joy and succor that I derive from GW.
Thanks for making me feel badly about myself.
Casey ;-)

Caryscott, you're right. The KD was showing me the "international" doors which resembled frameless but not quite.

I'm leaning toward Cabico or Dover Woods at the moment although no one in this forum or anywhere else on the web has much to say about Dover. They are right here from Dover, NH (I'm in NH) so theoretically that would save on the shipping and I'd be supporting a local business and that's appealing.

I have to say this is a GREAT forum with community members helping eachother. I really appreciate all the information and look forward to searching the site for more tips.

I'm laughing because I've seen pics of Casey's kitchen. And because I know Casey's work from the quality of his advice.

momj47, you'd be lucky if you could engage a tradesman like Casey.

Casey, you can come over to my place and kick one of my cats (if you can catch them).

To me, face frame cabinets scream "I live in a suburban subdivision, and want to do what I've seen my neighbors do." And, if you are going frameless, why not get great value by using Ikea? You don't have to use their doors, though it will require quite a bit of research, effort, and time not to.

Now I'm sure I've offended a lot of people. Let me just qualify that I've seen plenty of BEAUTIFUL kitchens on this forum that used face frame cabs. But, for me, especially since I live 10 miles from an Ikea, the choice was clear. Can't wait for my frameless kitchen to be complete.

I love ikea cabinets! I was going to use them but found out that a member of my koi club is a cabinet builder so I let him quote my kitchen. To my shock, his price came in not a whole lot higher than IKEA. So I went with custom cabinets. He builds his sort of semi-framless. The bottom cabinets all have a rail at the top and between each drawer. His top cabinets have a rail at the top so there is a better place to attach the crown molding. The cabinets still look and function like framless because of the full width but have a bit of the face frame features as well. I really like them!

Cabico (FYI they make face frame cabs but they don't sell them in Canada) operates out of Quebec but is owned by Republic National Cabinet Corporation which I believe is American. Very nice product but not inexpensive. I don't know Dover Woods either but I'm all for buying local particularly from a small thriving business (in the current climate it's better to spend locally when you can). Cabico is mostly semi-custom and you can often upgrade to custom for what you pay for semi-cusom (it is sometimes even less). I gather from the tenor of things here you may not have as many custom shops making frameless in the US (this isn't true here where even the most crotchety and old school cabinet makers long ago embraced frameless - and they still take pride in and stand by their work).

I found compiling enough information about cabinetry to feel like I could make an informed decision was one of the hardest parts of the reno process because there is so much conflicting information and so many possible choices. I didn't find the link I posted until after we had placed our cabinet order put fortunately it wasn't a major departure from the info I already had. I look forward to hearing about your final selection when you get to that point. Good luck!

morton5, if you're aiming to be different from the jones in your cabinetry choice, you'd best steer away from IKEA. They are one of the best selling brands and becoming increasingly more popular.

One factor I'd like to address regarding IKEA is the assembly cost. Of course this is moot if you're DIY, but if you are paying for labor, assembling the cabinets can double the install price, substantially diminishing IKEA's value.

To gemini16, there are minor pros & cons to framed & frameless. Frameless can be a bit trickier to install and with framed, you lose a bit of drawer space. You can order framed bases 'butte' (no center stile) which adds to the accessability factor greatly.

I know a lot of people like IKEA, but I didn't like them. They were too limited in sizes & configurations for my kitchen, there weren't any door styles I liked, and we did not DIY most of our kitchen. On the other hand, I love my face frame cabinets. They had a couple of doors I liked, plenty of size & configuration options...including a few custom where needed.

We actually have 2 IKEAs nearby, so I was able to check them out in-person. If you like the style of cabinets, have standard needs, and, especially if you're DIYing it, then go ahead. I've even recommended them here to others who like the "modern" look and have a tight budget. But they weren't for me.

Paulines, as I said, you can use the Ikea carcass and a custom door. IMO, even if you use an Ikea door, you make it your own with your other choices (backsplash, counter, layout, hardware, lighting).

I enjoyed assembling my Ikea cabs, but agree it may not be for everyone. Also, it helps tremendously if you live close to an Ikea.

My last kitchen cabinets were Thomasville frameless and I LOVED them. No problems in 6 years (then we moved!). I tried very hard to find frameless again and ended up not using them, but I really liked the TV ones!

Arlene

The cabinetry game changes quickly I was just looking at the 2008 "Who's Who in Cabinetry" and the former Cuisine Cabico which was part of the RNCC appears to be independant again as Groupe Cabico and it is actually a 100% custom line.

We gave Ikea a passing glance but we found it wasn't a stock line we could make work for our layout. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say something that isn't going to be very popular but I wasn't that impressed with the quality of the basic construction of the boxes. As we couldn't make their stock sizes work and we didn't really like the door styles they offered I didn't invest a lot of time researching them but I'm pretty sure they don't have solid backs, I'm not sure what grade the particleboard is either and they are joined primarily by dowels and camlocks. If you walk through an Ikea you see a lot of white melamine peaking out behind sagging and misaligned doors. Someone here used self-adhesive edgebanding on hers which I thought was quite ingenious. I like the look but I'm not sure about the rest.

Once you have built, installed and lived with frameless, you cant go back...I speak from experience :)

No, the Ikea cabs do not have solid backs. I could see how that could be an issue for some people. I have very few upper cabs and my lower cabs are mostly drawers, so it didn't bother me.

I found it very easy (dare I say fun?) to change the edgebanding on the boxes using iron-on edgebanding. Again, this may be more of a craft project than some are willing to take on.

We installed frameless cabinets and are very happy with them. There is so much more room in the drawers than there would be with framed cabinets.

A word of warning about the uppers: There's no stile or face frame to decrease the size of the cabinet box opening. But the tradeoff is that you have hinges that impinge on the opening AND the hinges get screwed into holes that could have been used for shelf clips, so there isn't 100% adjustability for your shelves. That said, we'd not go back to framed cabinets.

With regard to hinges: Our wall cabinet hinges open to a standard 110 degrees, which is fine for most of the kitchen. But for the wall cabinet that opens over the dishwasher, we installed 170-degree hinges so that the doors could be opened wide, out of reach of our heads as we load and unload the DW.

Since paulines mentioned the center stile, it reminded me. Make sure the cabs you are looking at do not have one. I've seen frameless cabs with a center stile, which, of course, defeats the purpose of being frameless.

Also, it's a good idea to measure the inside usable space in the drawers. It can fluctuate greatly among brands. Frameless inherently means more useable space in drawers, but it does not guarantee that.

Bottom line: make sure you really know what you're getting before you sign.

Frameless are not simply boxes without faceframes!
There is an entire system as to how they are to be built and installed. Unfortunately, most installers know only how to install face frame boxes. You should NEVER simply screw the back of a frameless box onto the wall. To be truly frameless the boxes must be made with the 32mm system ( the German way ). If your frameless box does not have suspension blocks on the inside of the upper corners and were not installed using a "suspension rail", then they are not true 32mm. The suspension rail along with fastening the individual boxes together prevents racking.
A lot of American companies offer what they think is frameless but its a completely different system.

Cabmanct, is the suspension rail only important for upper cabs?

Sorry to hijack, but I am using Ikea cabs and my contractor scoffs at the way the base cabs are attached to the wall. He says that if we attach the base cabs to the wall using the holes in the back of the cab, there is no guarantee we will hit a stud, and I think he has a point. Please clarify if you are familiar with what I am trying to describe.

Yes.
I am not familiar with how Ikea mount their cabs.
I presume that they have predrilled some countersinks.

If thats the case then your contractor should have recommended blocking strips between your studs ( you will have to cut out the drywall, not a big job ). Here's the thing, cabs ALWAYS are attached by 3" Cabinet Hangers into a stud or blocking. Never drywall alone.
Hope this helps

Steve

The cabs I replaced were framed and racked like crazy, in addition, the previous owners had removed all the doors to paint, and didn't put the right doors on the right cabs. Talk about not square! LOL.

I have IKEA now. Contractors who are not familiar with them always pooh-pooh them, just like they have a tendencey to pooh-pooh anything they haven't seen or worked with or done before, unfortunately. I guess if I were a contractor I'd also tend to tout what I've worked with before. It's up us poor ignorant homeowners to stick to our guns and get what we want.

Pauline, my cabs PLUS installation came in under any other cab prices before installation. My kitchen is the most beautiful kitchen in my neighborhood, if I may say so myself and be so smug! (We miss you over in Cooking.)

:P