We are about to try some RTA (ready to assemble) cabinets. Boxes are all white melamine, but cab faces (doors and drawer fronts) are all “mission style” stile and rail flat panel in knotty pine. The cab arrangement is frameless. Some of our vanities are situated so one end is exposed, with the other end against an adjacent wall. How would you finish the exposed end, so as to hide the white melamine and match the finish of the faces? Our thought is to buy a stile and rail “panel” from the same source as for our doors and drawer fronts, and fasten it atop the 3/4″ melamine, screwing through from the inside. Should we bring the panel front edge out to the plane of the cab fronts (leaving a small 3/4 x 3/4 inside corner), or to the plane of the door fronts? We cannot buy the end cab with one finished side, and are stuck with the white melamine throughout.
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Order a door from your door supplier to a width that matches the depth of the cabinet plus sufficent to make the front of the door flush with the cabinet side. That gives the cleanest look and matches the faces. Screwing from the inside is clean and easy.
It is not clear to me, Dick, whether the door that will be the finished end face should have its front edge flush to the cab box face (i.e., flush to the BACKSIDE of the doors and drawer fronts on the cabinet front), or flush out to the face of the doors and drawer fronts. You say that one of these leaves the cleanest appearance, but which?
Sorry to be confusing. When I have to add an end panel on the cabinets I build, I always run it out to conceal the edge of the door particularly when the boxes are Melamine and the faces are wood. I suggested a door because I didn't catch that you had the option of ordering plain end panels as well. Which you choose is a matter of personal taste. I would more often go with the plain panel unless the doors are of a fairly simple design or I thought the look would be enhanced by using a door.
To me (and my customers), concealing the door edge is cleaner and more fitted. The alternative looks like the panel is an add-on rather than a part of the design.Edit: I am assuming you are using full overlay hinges on the doors. If not, I would still run to the front face of the door, but would add a pine filler strip to cover the exposed melamine edge of the cabinet side.
Edited 4/3/2002 2:06:53 AM ET by Dick
Gene,
When you are ordering your end panel also get a peice of timber to place at the other (wall) end of the unit to balance up the look & also provide for any out of squareness in the room's corner. If you use hollow headed screws to fix your end panel, white stem caps can be fitted to improve the inside appearance of the job. FWW
No. We have ordered from CabParts, and they only offer melamine boxes. Our doors and drawer fronts, and finished panels for exposed cab ends, are coming from Keystone Wood Specialties. The CabParts package is extremely cost effective, and the cost for the prefinished panels for cab ends from Keystone is less than getting a box with a finished end panel from someone else.