Understanding Cabinet Construction: Materials That Matter

Hi everyone, Nikki Grassmann here from Crowned Cabinets in Dunedin! When you start

looking at kitchen displays or browsing through design portfolios, it is very easy to get

swept away by the surface beauty. The paint colors, the wood grains, and the sparkling

hardware are what capture our attention. But as a cabinet designer, I always tell my

clients in Pinellas County that a kitchen is only as good as what is inside the walls of the

cabinets. Cabinetry is essentially the heavy-use furniture of your kitchen, and it has to

hold up hundreds of pounds of stone countertops while being opened and closed

thousands of times a year. To make a smart investment, you need to look past the doors

and understand the raw materials that make up the “skeleton” of your kitchen.

The most common material debate centers around the cabinet box itself, and the gold

standard for high-end cabinetry is all-plywood construction. Plywood is made by

gluing together multiple thin layers of wood veneer with the grain running in alternating