Glossary
Kitchen cabinet terms, explained.
A kitchen cabinet is described by its type (base, wall, tall or vanity), how its box is built (plywood or particle board, face frame or frameless, cam locks or click-together), how its door sits (full overlay, partial overlay or inset), its door style and finish, and the trim that finishes the run: fillers, panels, toe kick, crown and scribe. This glossary defines 60 of those terms in plain English, one paragraph each, with a link to where each one matters. RTA Cabinets Plus cabinets are framed, full overlay shaker cabinets with plywood boxes and real paint and stain finishes, and the boxes click together on a licensed system with 100% tool-free box assembly.
60cabinet terms, one paragraph each
5groups: types, build, doors, hardware, trim
Plain Englishwith a link to where each one matters
Freedesign if you would rather ask a person
Cabinet types
The cabinets a kitchen is built from.
- Base cabinet
- A cabinet that stands on the floor and carries the countertop. Standard base cabinets are 34 1/2" tall and 24" deep, so the counter lands at about 36". They come with doors, drawers or both, in widths from 9" to 48". Base cabinets
- Wall cabinet
- A cabinet that hangs on the wall above the counter, also called an upper cabinet. Standard wall cabinets are 12" deep, from 12" to 42" tall and 9" to 42" wide. The bottom usually sits 18" above the countertop. Wall cabinets
- Tall cabinet
- A floor to near ceiling cabinet, 24" deep, used as a pantry or to house a wall oven. Tall cabinets here come 84", 90" or 96" tall: pantries 18", 24" and 30" wide, oven cabinets 33" wide. Tall cabinets
- Vanity cabinet
- A bathroom base cabinet. Vanities are usually 34 1/2" tall like kitchen bases but shallower, at 21" deep, and come as sink bases, drawer bases and drawer banks from 12" to 60" wide. Vanity cabinets
- Floating vanity
- A vanity that hangs on the wall instead of standing on the floor, leaving the floor clear underneath. It is fastened into studs or blocking like a wall cabinet, so check the wall framing before choosing one. Vanity cabinets
- Sink base
- A base cabinet with doors and no drawer box, so it can be cut around the drain and water lines. A 36" sink base is the usual home for a double bowl sink. Measuring for a sink
- Farm sink base
- A sink base cut lower at the front to take an apron front (farmhouse) sink, whose front face shows below the counter. Farm sink bases here come 30", 33" and 36" wide. Size it to the sink maker's cabinet requirement.
- Drawer base
- A base cabinet made of drawers instead of doors, usually two, three or four stacked. Deep drawers hold pots and pans better than shelves, because you pull the contents to you instead of reaching in.
- Blind corner cabinet
- A corner cabinet whose door sits on one wall while its box runs on into the corner behind the next run. Blind corner bases are 42" or 48" wide; a wall blind corner cabinet is 27". It needs a filler so the doors on the two runs clear each other. Corner rules
- Lazy susan
- A corner base cabinet with rotating shelves, so nothing is lost at the back of the corner. A lazy susan cabinet needs the same length of wall on both sides of the corner: 33" or 36".
- Easy reach wall cabinet
- A corner wall cabinet with a square front that fills an inside corner above the counter. It needs 24" of wall on each side of the corner.
- Diagonal corner wall cabinet
- A corner wall cabinet with a single door set across the corner at 45 degrees. It needs 24" of wall on each side and often takes a glass door.
- Microwave cabinet
- A cabinet sized to hold a microwave: a 30" wide microwave wall cabinet over the range, or a microwave base cabinet, 24" or 30" wide, under the counter.
- Oven cabinet
- A tall cabinet with an opening for a built-in wall oven, 33" wide here and 84", 90" or 96" tall. An oven base cabinet puts the oven under the counter instead. The oven maker's cutout size decides which works.
- Deep wall cabinet
- A 24" deep wall cabinet that goes over a refrigerator, so its front lines up with the refrigerator's and its shelves are reachable. Usually 30", 33" or 36" wide and 12" to 24" tall.
How the box is built
Box, materials and assembly.
- RTA (ready to assemble)
- Cabinets that ship flat packed and are put together on site. RTA describes how a cabinet ships, not how good it is: compare the box material, finish, drawers and hinges, not the label. What RTA cabinets are
- Assembled cabinet
- A cabinet that arrives already built. It saves the assembly step but costs more to ship and takes more room to receive and store. RTA vs assembled
- Stock, semi-custom and custom
- Stock cabinets come in set sizes and finishes and ship fast. Semi-custom adds options within a standard range of sizes. Custom is built to order for one kitchen. Our cabinets are a semi-custom build sold in stock sizes.
- Box (carcass)
- The cabinet body: the sides, bottom, back and top or stretchers, before the doors and drawers go on. The box material decides how a cabinet ages.
- Cam lock
- The round metal fitting that holds a traditional RTA box together: a bolt in one panel is pulled tight by a cam turned in the next. Cam lock boxes also use dowels and often glue, and each fitting is placed and turned by hand. Why assembly takes so long
- Click-together assembly
- A box whose panels lock to each other as they meet, held by a concealed internal pinlock, with no cam locks, dowels, glue or screws. Our boxes click together on a licensed system about 10x faster than cam lock RTA, in under 2 minutes a box. Only the metal hardware needs screws. Watch a box go together
- Face frame
- A frame of solid wood rails and stiles on the front of the box. It squares up the front, stiffens the cabinet and gives the hinges something solid to bite into. Every framed cabinet here has a solid wood face frame.
- Frameless cabinet
- A cabinet with no face frame, where the doors hang straight from the box sides; also called European style. It gives slightly wider openings, but the box edges carry all the stiffness and the doors must be set very precisely.
- Plywood
- A panel made of thin wood layers glued with the grain crossed. It holds screws, resists sagging on a loaded shelf and stands up to a wet sink base far better than particle board. Our boxes and 3/4" shelves are plywood. Plywood vs particle board
- Particle board
- A panel of wood chips pressed with resin. It is cheaper than plywood but heavier, holds screws poorly once a hole is reworked, and swells once water gets into an edge. Plywood vs particle board
- MDF
- Medium density fiberboard, made of fine wood fibers and resin. It is smooth and stable, which suits painted door center panels, but like particle board it is weaker than plywood around screws and water.
- Veneer
- A thin slice of real wood laid over a core panel. It gives the look of solid wood across a wide, stable surface, and takes stain like the wood it was cut from.
- Dovetail drawer
- A drawer box whose corners interlock with fan shaped pins and tails, the strongest common drawer joint. Ours is a 5/8" solid wood dovetail drawer box.
- Linear foot
- A foot of cabinet run measured along the wall, used to compare kitchen prices. A 10 x 10 kitchen is about 20 linear feet of cabinets. What RTA cabinets cost
Doors and finishes
How the door sits, and what is on its face.
- Full overlay
- A door that covers almost all of the face frame, leaving narrow, even gaps between doors. It reads as a modern, continuous front. Every door here is full overlay. Door styles
- Partial overlay
- A door that covers only part of the face frame, so a band of frame shows around every door. Common on older and builder grade kitchens.
- Inset door
- A door set inside the face frame, flush with it. It looks furniture-like, but it needs precise fitting and gives up a little opening width.
- Shaker door
- A five piece door: four flat rails and stiles around a recessed flat center panel. It is the most widely used kitchen door. Sterling is a shaker with wider rails; Studio is a slim rail shaker. Shaker door styles
- Slab door
- A flat, one piece door with no frame or panel. We do not sell slab doors; our kitchen doors are both shaker.
- Rail and stile
- The frame of a five piece door: rails run across, stiles run up and down. Their width is what separates a classic shaker from a slim one.
- Recessed panel
- The flat center of a shaker door, set back from the rails and stiles that frame it.
- Painted finish
- An opaque coat of real paint over the door and frame. It gives a solid, even color and can be touched up. Snow, Alabaster, Quarry, Caviar and Malachite are painted. Painted vs stained
- Stained finish
- A transparent color that soaks into real wood and lets the grain show through. Wood Ridge and Coastal are stained; Coastal is genuine white oak. Painted vs stained
- Thermofoil
- A vinyl film heat pressed onto an MDF door. It is cheap and smooth, but it can lift or peel near heat and cannot be touched up. We do not sell thermofoil.
- Melamine
- A resin coated paper fused to a particle board panel, common on budget boxes and doors. It chips at the edges and cannot be refinished. We do not use it on our finishes.
- Two-tone kitchen
- A kitchen with one finish on the wall cabinets and another on the bases or island. The free design can draw a two-tone kitchen in any of the finishes a door style comes in. Start a free design
- Sample door
- A real door in the same finish, profile and edge as the order. A full sample door is $19.99 and a quarter door sample is $4.99, shipping included on both, and the sample price is credited toward your cabinet order. Order a sample door
Hardware
The metal parts, the only ones that need screws.
- Concealed hinge
- A hinge mounted inside the cabinet, hidden when the door is closed; also called a European or cup hinge. It adjusts in three directions so doors can be lined up after hanging. Ours are soft-close.
- Soft-close
- A damper in a hinge or drawer glide that catches the door or drawer in the last inch and closes it slowly and quietly. Standard on every cabinet here, not an upgrade.
- Full extension glide
- A drawer runner that lets the drawer open all the way, so the back of the drawer is as easy to reach as the front.
- Roll out tray
- A shallow drawer that sits behind a cabinet door and slides out, so a base cabinet works like a drawer bank without changing its front.
- Pull-out
- A narrow insert that slides out of a base cabinet: a spice pull-out, or a wastebasket pull-out that keeps the trash beside the sink.
Trim and installation
The pieces that make a run fit the room.
- Filler
- A strip in the cabinet finish that closes the gap between a cabinet and a wall, or between two runs at a corner, so doors and drawers open past the wall and each other. Fillers come 3" and 6" wide and are ripped to fit on site. The filler rule
- Scribe
- To trace the shape of an uneven wall or floor onto a filler or panel and cut it to match, so the piece meets the wall with no gap. Almost no wall is straight enough to skip it. How to fit fillers
- Scribe molding
- A thin, flexible strip in the cabinet finish that covers small gaps where a cabinet meets an uneven wall or floor.
- Toe kick
- The recess at the foot of a base cabinet, and the board that covers it. The recess lets you stand close to the counter; the board hides the shims and makes the floor line read as one piece.
- End panel
- A finished panel that covers an exposed cabinet side at the end of a run, in base, wall and tall heights.
- Skin panel
- A thin finished sheet laid over a cabinet side or the back of an island, so a plain box face matches the doors.
- Return panel
- A panel that finishes the side of an appliance opening: a dishwasher return at the end of a run, or a refrigerator return panel that frames the refrigerator.
- Crown molding
- The molding along the top of the wall cabinets that finishes them against the ceiling or the open space above. Stacking molding builds it taller.
- Light rail
- A narrow molding under the wall cabinets that hides under-cabinet lights from a seated view and gives the bottom edge a finished line.
- Shim
- A thin tapered wedge, usually wood, slid under or behind a cabinet to level it on an uneven floor or plumb it against an uneven wall.
- Stud
- A vertical framing member inside the wall, usually 16" apart. Every cabinet screws into studs or solid blocking, never into drywall alone.
- Soffit
- A boxed out section of ceiling above the wall cabinets, often hiding ducts or pipes. Measure its height and depth, because it sets how tall the wall cabinets can be.
- Work triangle
- The path between the sink, the range and the refrigerator. Keeping it short and clear of traffic is the oldest rule of kitchen layout. Kitchen layouts
Questions
What people ask next.
What is the difference between a cam lock and a click-together cabinet?
A cam lock box is held by metal cams, dowels and often glue, each placed and turned by hand. A click-together box locks panel to panel as the pieces meet, with no cam locks, dowels, glue or screws. RTA Cabinets Plus boxes click together on a licensed system in under 2 minutes, about 10x faster than screw-together RTA.
What is the difference between a face frame and a frameless cabinet?
A face frame cabinet has a solid wood frame on the front of the box that the doors hinge from. A frameless cabinet has no frame and the doors hang from the box sides. RTA Cabinets Plus cabinets are framed, with solid wood face frames.
What does full overlay mean on a cabinet?
The door covers almost all of the face frame, leaving narrow, even gaps between doors, so the front reads as one continuous surface. Every RTA Cabinets Plus door is full overlay.
What is a filler in kitchen cabinets?
A strip in the cabinet finish that closes the gap between a cabinet and a wall, or between two runs at a corner, so doors and drawers can open. Fillers come 3" and 6" wide and are cut to fit on site.
What is a toe kick?
The recess at the foot of a base cabinet, and the board that covers it. The recess lets you stand close to the counter; the board hides the shims and finishes the floor line.
Is plywood better than particle board for cabinets?
For the box, yes. Plywood holds screws better, sags less under a loaded shelf and resists water at a sink base far better than particle board, which swells once water gets in. RTA Cabinets Plus boxes and shelves are plywood.
Who we areRTA Cabinets Plus is an independently owned retailer that sells ready to assemble kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities direct to homeowners, remodelers and trade buyers. Made by a manufacturer that builds cabinets for one of the largest semi-custom brands in the U.S.
More planning guides
How do you measure a kitchen for cabinets?
Measure a kitchen for new cabinets: walls, ceiling, windows, plumbing and appliances, plus filler, scribe and corner rules and a printable worksheet.
How do you install kitchen cabinets?
How to install kitchen cabinets: find the high point and studs, hang the wall cabinets first, level and join the bases, then fit fillers, panels, toe kick and crown.
Want a person to check your plan?(305) 782-7587, Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm ET. Or send your measurements for a free design.