how to avoid face frame on cabinets?

[joe webb]

Hello all,

I have been remodeling my closets by adding organization cabinets and shelves. We have both reach-in and walk-in closets.
I built cabinets as pictured and hang them on my walls (they don't sit on the floor). I feel they look nice enough especially for an item that is hidden behind doors for most part :-)
As you can see, no face frame. I simply used edge bands. I'd like to keep doing the same for the other closets, but couple of them have challenging layout.

1) One reach-in closet have the door closed all the way to its side wall (no recess as the one pictured). My preferred layout (shown in the CAD) would be pushing the drawers unit against the wall. But then door casing would prevent the drawers from being fully pulled out. The door opening is only 36" wide (2 sliding doors) thus it is too small to insert another component (such as shelves) between the wall and the drawers and make it useful. I can push the drawers 1.5" away from the wall to clear the door casing, but I would need to put a face frame to cover the gap. Any other way to deal w/ this?

2) One small walk-in closet with a wall of 50" wide. Having the drawers in middle and shelves on each side would produce 3 narrow sections that is very usable. So I was thinking of making a 50" cabinet to hold a bunch of drawers (2nd CAD - I will make 3 drawers per row though). But my walls are not square and plumb. If I build a cabinet that is a bit smaller than the 50", how can I hide the gaps without using face frame?

I find face frame tedious to make. I cannot completely finish the product in my garage. Doing the work once the cabinet is in the closet cause more loss of use of the space, have to bring my tools upstairs, the bad smell of stain etc. A lot of work and I only have a couple of hours per day to work on this.

At this point, I am leaning toward just leave the gap as is. It's behind doors most of the time, but if there is an easy solution for this problem, I will give it a go. So far, face frame is the only solution I know of.

Any suggestion would be highly appreciated
Thanks much

[Mark Bolton]

Use a scribe against the wall to allow for non-plumb and hinge clearance? Thats the typical.

[Jim Becker]

Face frames or frameless is totally a style decision. Frameless is likely the most popular in the overall market but it wouldn't work in my house for my particular design preferences. (part of our home is 250 years old) I agree that making face frames can be tedious and it kicks the accuracy need up a few notches, too, because, well...square kinda is important for inset doors. It's important for frameless, too, but there are less "non moving" parts involved.

For your particular situation, you may need to use filler strips and reduce the width of your cabinets in order for a frameless design to work. The filler strips go between the carcass and the wall and effectively move the cabinet over slightly to give you the clearance you need for doors and drawers to work properly and also provide the same visual spacing on the wall side of the doors/drawer-fronts as you have between them in a run of cabinets. So "think outside the box"...literally...and consider if filler will be necessary to space things so they work functionally and visually. Oh, and this also allows you to deal with out-of-plum surrounds because you can scribe those fillers to fit.

[Dave Sabo]

how bout a picture to show you ?

https://www.modcabinetry.com/wp-cont...illerImage.png

[Mark Bolton]

Or Daves filler could be pushed back to the carcass face as a scribe.

[Dave Sabo]

Or Daves filler could be pushed back to the carcass face as a scribe.

Yup. With that type it doesn't much matter whether the face is in line with the fronts or the carcass.

[joe webb]

Thanks all. That is indeed much simpler and I would go for this :-)

[Dave Sabo]

We want pics when you’re finished.

well, I do anyway.