A guide to custom cabinetry: what sits behind the door

The door is the part you touch and close to the least of what you are buying. The board behind it, the tape on its edge, the hinge carrying its weight and the runner under each drawer decide whether a kitchen still shuts quietly in ten years, or starts to sag, swell and rattle in three. This guide opens the doors, names the parts, and gives you the questions worth putting to any cabinetmaker before a deposit changes hands.

See how our custom cabinetry is built

09 QUESTIONS · ASK BEFORE THE DEPOSIT

Questions worth asking any cabinetmaker

01 What board are the carcasses cut from, and at what thickness?02 Is the edging laser-applied or glued, and how thick is it?03 Are cabinet backs grooved into the box or stapled on?04 What is the door substrate, and how does the finish behave beside an oven?05 Is soft-close standard on every door and drawer, or an upgrade?06 What load rating do the drawer runners carry, and do they fully extend?07 Are shelves adjustable, and on what pin spacing?08 Is the run built to the room’s measured set-out or to nominal module sizes?09 Who scribes the fillers, levels the boxes and fits the kicks on site?

A cabinetmaker who answers these in numbers rather than adjectives is usually the one drawing a set-out sheet before quoting. That sequence is described stage by stage on our 13-step process page.

300 / 450 / 600 MODULES · 720 CARCASS HEIGHT

The box: board, edging and backs

Almost every Australian kitchen carcass is built from a sheet product: melamine-faced particleboard, moisture-resistant MDF, or plywood where weight and screw-holding matter. Thickness is the first honest signal. A 16mm box with a grooved-in back is a rigid structure; the same box in thinner board, with a 3mm back stapled to the rear edges, relies on the wall and the benchtop to stay square.

Edging is where kitchens fail quietly. Every cut edge near a sink, dishwasher or kettle is a path for moisture into the board core, and thin edge tape with a visible glue line is the weak point. Thicker ABS edging, applied tightly with no seam, is the difference between a drawer box that still looks new and one that has swollen at the base.

Then there is shelving. Fixed shelves are stronger but permanent; adjustable shelves on standard pin spacing let a pantry change as the household does. Both are worth deciding at design stage rather than on installation day — see pantry & storage solutions for how shelf and pull-out decisions are set out.

WHAT TO SPECIFY

16 / 18 MM
Carcass board thickness0.4 / 1 / 2 MM
Edge tape options3 / 12 MM
Stapled or grooved back32 MM
Shelf pin spacing150 MM
Typical kick height

04 FRONTS · ONE ROOM · ONE CLIMATE

Four ways a door is made

Door fronts are chosen on three grounds at once: how they look, how they take heat and steam, and whether they can be repaired later. A finish that photographs beautifully in a showroom may be the wrong one for a wall of tall cabinets beside a wall oven. Below, the four common constructions and what each is genuinely good at.

01 · SHEET FINISH

Laminate & melamine

A pressed decorative surface on a board core. Hard-wearing, wide colour and woodgrain range, stable in a kitchen that gets hot and steamy. Edges are tape-finished, so edge quality is the thing to inspect. Not repairable if deeply scratched — but rarely needs it.

02 · WRAPPED

Vinyl-wrapped MDF

A membrane pressed over a routed MDF door, which is how most affordable shaker profiles are made. Seamless edges and crisp detail. Heat is its enemy: keep wrapped fronts away from unshielded ovens and steam outlets.

03 · SPRAYED

Two-pack polyurethane

Sprayed colour over sealed MDF, in matte, satin or gloss. Any colour, any profile, and the only finish that can be re-sprayed years later. Slower to make and less forgiving of knocks on sharp corners.

04 · TIMBER

Veneer & solid

Real grain, matched across a run and clear-coated. Warm, repairable, and the most variable — each sheet differs. Best specified with grain direction noted on the drawing.

REFERENCE PHOTO · INSERTS ONLY WORK IF THE RUNNER BELOW IS RATED FOR THE LOADED WEIGHT

25 / 40 / 60 KG · 110° / 165° · 3-WAY ADJUSTMENT

Hardware: the parts that actually move

HINGES
Soft-close concealed hinges with three-way adjustment
Opening angle matters at internal corners and beside walls. Three-way adjustment lets a fitter square every door gap on site — the detail that makes a run look machine-made.RUNNERS
Concealed undermount runners, full extension, rated by load
A pot drawer carrying cast iron needs a higher rating than a cutlery drawer. Full extension means the back of the drawer clears the bench edge, so nothing is lost at the rear.OPENING
Handles, finger pulls or push-to-open
Handleless fronts need a wider reveal and a consistent gap, which shifts work back to the set-out stage rather than the showroom.MECHANISMS
Lift-ups, corner units and internal drawers
Every mechanism eats internal space and needs clearance above or beside it. Specify them on the drawing, not after the boxes are cut.

03 ROUTES · SAME ROOM · DIFFERENT FIT

Flat-pack, modular or fully custom

01
Flat-pack
Boxes shipped in standard widths and assembled on site. Cheapest route, and workable in a square room — but gaps are absorbed by filler panels rather than designed out.02
Modular
Factory-built cabinets in fixed increments, delivered assembled. Better construction and hardware than flat-pack, still limited to the widths the range offers.03
Fully custom
Every carcass cut to the room’s measured dimensions, including the awkward returns, bulkheads and out-of-square walls that older Oakleigh homes are full of. Nothing is left over.

The practical difference shows up at fit-off, when doors are aligned, panels scribed to the wall and kicks cut to the floor’s real level — the work set out on our kitchen installation page.

CONTINUE · 07 OF 11 GUIDES