The cabinets in your kitchen offer your home more than just storage solutions for your kitchen items. You will find that having the right cabinets in your kitchen can greatly impact the design and the feel of your kitchen. The color, design, and style of your kitchen cabinets can change the entire feel of your kitchen area as well as your shared living room and kitchen space.

If you have been wanting to update your kitchen cabinets but are not sure what the right cabinets should be for your needs, you need to look into some tips and tricks to help you decide on the right cabinets. There are a variety of factors that go into picking the right kitchen cabinets for any home and you should be aware of them before you start shopping.

If you are ready to learn more about how to choose the right cabinets for your kitchen, you need to read on!

Choosing from the Types of Kitchen Cabinets

There are various styles of kitchen cabinets that you can choose from. Each of these styles offers a different design feel and you might change the entire look of your kitchen just by changing out the cabinets that you have hanging in the space.

· Shaker

These are the most common styles that you will see for cabinets in a kitchen. These are a classic design that offers a conservative and polished look that almost anyone will love. Shaker-style cabinets are traditionally a single flat center panel design with a raised ring of wood above the flat center panel. These are nice cabinets to choose from if you want painted cabinets because they take color well and look really finished and sleek when they are painted.

These are a really common style because they are so utilitarian and you will find that they will hold up well to being used on a daily basis. There are typically no glass panels or doors in these basic panels and they are often made of cherry, maple, hickory, or oak wood.

· Louvered

This is a fancy design that is associated with Florida or tropical locations in many people’s imagination. These cabinets offer angled slatted doors that make sure that you will get a lot of circulation into the cabinet spaces behind them. This is a great choice in tropical locations to help with mold and mildew and to prevent food from breaking down quickly.

These are quite an expensive style and many people will only add them to smaller spaces like a laundry room to help with moisture. They are often too spendy to add to your entire kitchen.

· Flat or Slab Panels

This is a really modern style that offers sleek and totally flush cabinet surfaces that have simple metal handles. You will get a seamless design that almost looks like a solid wall without seams or changes in the layering of the wood on the fronts of the cabinets.

This can be the perfect way to elevate your kitchen to a new sleek and modern look and many modern buildings have these cabinets in them to start with.

· Inset

This design offers an inset door inside the cabinet frame instead of on the frame like a normal cabinet door. This process requires meticulous measurements to create and this means that these cabinets can be a little spendy. They are really formal looking but can be the perfect design for your kitchen needs if you have a French provincial style kitchen or other upgraded look in the space.

These cabinets and drawers last for years because they are very well constructed and you will find that the cabinets work perfectly and with little noise due to their superior design and construction. You will have exposed hinges on this style.

· Distressed

Reclaimed wood and wood that has been made to look this way are very popular and lots of kitchens have distressed wood cabinets these days. This is a really popular way to get a farmhouse or even beachy feel worked into your kitchen design. This is not an expensive cabinet style overall and if you have real antique cabinets, you can actually just distress them further and add them to your décor.

· Thermofoil

This is another modern and dynamic style that offers a smooth and sleek finish. These cabinets are sometimes made without handles even and you will just press at the corners to open them. This is a plastic product that is baked until it is sealed and high gloss. These cabinets might look like wood due to the pattern that is built into the plastic.

This is a really low-maintenance style that is very sleek and very modern. They can be sensitive to heat, so they need to be installed with care if they need to be near an oven or cooktop.

· Beadboard

This is a style that uses vertical planks known as “beads” to craft the cabinets. This gives almost a ship-style feel and can pair well with subway tile or other farmhouse elements in your kitchen. This is one of the styles that has stayed popular for years and years and you will love how classic this cottage-style cabinet design is. This is a style of cabinet that is often painted white and it typically uses rounded or old-fashioned knobs.

· Custom

The final option is custom-made cabinets that can offer any combination of features and design choices for your personal needs. This makes it easy to mix and match handles and cabinet styles as well as gaining access to wood types that are not usually linked with certain cabinet build styles.

Custom cabinets can be expensive, but you will often get the best product for your money for a truly custom look. You can make your kitchen uniquely yours if you decide to opt for customer cabinetry for the entire kitchen.

Tips to Choose the Right Kitchen Cabinet

Choosing the right cabinet style for your needs doesn’t have to be a struggle. They might all be tempting to you and choosing might seem tough, but there are some key factors and tips and tricks that can help guide your choices. Picking the right cabinets will complete your kitchen and just changing out the cabinets can make a big difference in the overall appearance of your kitchen space.

1. Choose Custom or Prefab

This is the first big choice that anyone has to make about cabinets they are going to install in their kitchen. If you want to have a really unique look, you will need to choose custom in most cases. This might also be necessary if you want unique size or height cabinets. Custom cabinets can be expensive, but if you have a kitchen with an odd set of angles or design features, it might be your best bet.

Prefabricated cabinets are the most common choice to make since they are cheaper and they will offer you consistent results. You might even be able to install prefabricated cabinets yourself and save a lot of money for your overall cabinet replacement process in a remodel or redesign.

No matter which cabinet style you choose, you need to be sure that you get quality cabinets that will actually offer you the storage solutions that you need. There is nothing worse than having beautiful cabinets that do not fit all of your kitchen items.

2. Consider Storage Needs

Do you have lots of large appliances? Do you have two full sets of pots and pans or an entire spare set of fancy china that needs a home? If this is the case, you might need some additional height to your cabinets or you might need to expand the cabinet space that you were originally planning to install in your kitchen space.

Standard kitchen cabinet choices offer a lot of the space that most people will need, but if you have a lot of things that need to fit into your kitchen cupboard and drawers, you might need to be sure that you get access to all the space that you need to make things work for your sanity and organization.

Consider adding a corner cabinet with a lazy susan for easy spice storage or other kinds of easy access. You can also choose to have an insert in your cabinet that offers a hidden garbage can space. Even under sink space can be made to handle a lot of unique storage requirements that you might have been making work through less ideal means.

When you are replacing your cabinets, you should not just think about the outside appearance. You need to try to plan for the actual function of your cabinets as well as the way that they will impact the color and the feel of your kitchen as a whole.

3. Custom Interiors

If you have wanted to pick custom cabinets but do not want to pay the price for the custom items to be built, you can look into inserts that can make your cabinet interiors more effective for your needs. There are many storage solutions that fit inside standard cabinet size spaces and you can employ them to store various items with ease.

The other thing that you need to think about when planning the storage spaces inside your cabinets, is that you can pick cabinets that have the kind of shelves that can be moved up and down to allow taller items to fit within them with ease. 

These common cabinet interior storage solutions will allow you to change the height of the shelving so that you can fit more or fewer items inside each cabinet. This is very helpful when storing dishes and other items that take up less space when there are enough shelves to separate and stack them.

4. Plan Drawers Versus Cabinets

When you are remodeling, you will probably have the choice to add drawers or change them out for cabinets. Both kinds of storage space offer unique benefits so you should consider what you need for your storage in your kitchen. If you have lots of large or tall items, cabinets are probably better than drawers. Drawers are perfect for things like silverware and smaller items and you can often add more things to your storage if you have lots of drawers.

Remember that drawers will have to be placed down low where you can access them readily and balance the number of drawers that you have for easy access when compared to cabinets. Cabinets and drawers should all match, so whatever style cabinets you pick will need to be matched to the drawer facings or they will all need to be replaced at the same time.

Drawers are often more expensive than cabinets because they will need their own tracks, fronts, and hardware. Cabinets are mostly just empty boxes with doors on the front and do not need track and wheel assemblies of any kind. Adding drawers can increase the cost of your job.

5. Consider Your Appliances

If you have appliances that are large and you don’t want them on the kitchen counters, you need to think about the kinds of cabinets that will be needed for these items. While you might be able to put them into spaces that are less than ideal, this can make it hard to access them when you need them. Making sure that you have a designated cabinet space for taller or bulky items can help with your overall storage goals immensely.

Appliances might not be your only tall or large items and if you have lots of mixing bowls or dishware, you will want to be sure that you have the right cabinets for your overall storage needs. This is part of the benefits of picking your own cabinets and you can improve your storage on the inside of your cabinets while also altering and improving the outside appearance of your cabinets.

6. Modern or Classic Styling

You might feel like you can’t choose between modern styles of cabinet or traditional styles. Sometimes your space will make the choice for you because if there is not enough space to add the fittings and other design needs of modern cabinet supports, you might not be able to change to this style of cabinet. You might also find that styles that require heavier materials will not work in your kitchen due to a lack of stud support for heavy cabinet styles.

At the end of the day, you can choose either design style if you wish but you will need to be sure that you can actually fit the designs that you have in mind into your kitchen without causing issues with the support of the cabinets or their function. 

Adding larger drawers or larger cabinet doors can make it hard to navigate the kitchen if you have a very small or galley kitchen. You should always consider working with a design expert if you are not sure if the cabinets that you have in mind will work for your needs.

7. Color

This can be a big decision when you are replacing cabinets in your kitchen. Modern styles are not always sold in every color that you could want as they are often made of materials that are limited in color. Wooden cabinets can often be painted to be any color that you want, but there are some wood materials that do not take certain colors well. 

Color can be impacted by more than just the material of your cabinet choice and you need to be sure that you pick a color that will hold up over time to exposure to sun and other environmental factors.

This is another place where having the help of a design expert can be really invaluable. You can get some advice about the color ranges that each cabinet style will offer you and they will probably be able to show you some pictures of the other kitchens out there with the cabinets you are thinking of picking.

One of the other factors to do with colors that you might want to choose for your kitchen cabinets is that bold colors can go in and out of style. This might be an issue if you want to sell your home or your apartment when the color of your cabinets has gone out of style. If you are not sure that you want to have to repaint or replace your kitchen cabinets to accommodate changing styles when you go to sell or rent out your home or apartment, you might want to pick a conservative color.

Some kitchens also do not get enough light to handle dark colors, and you need to be aware that the natural light in your kitchen can impact your color decision quite a bit. Picking bold or unique colors can be fine so long as the natural light in your kitchen will make these colors work with all of your other décors.

8. Finishes

If you are not sure which kind of finish you want to pick, you can often get samples of the different styles to look at when you work with a design expert. You might also be able to head to a Home Depot or other home building store to look at the different styles of cabinets so that you can see what each style looks like in person.

The finish of the exterior of your cabinets can impact the overall look and feel of your kitchen greatly. You need to be sure that you like how the cabinets you have chosen look in person and that you like the way that they operate with these finishes in place. Some kinds of hardware can actually be less ideal than you might have thought and you should be sure of this before you commit to installing cabinets that do not suit your needs or operate in a way that you prefer.

9. Fittings and Hardware

Many people don’t think about the handles and other fittings of their cabinets before they install them. You might like the way that handles look but then once you are using them, you hate them. There are so many different kinds of fittings and hardware that you can find the style that you like if you go looking around at styles.

You might not be able to get the handle style that you prefer with certain cabinet exteriors. This is why you need to know what kinds of knobs and handles you prefer before you pick the exterior of your cabinets. It is frustrating to love the cabinets you have picked and hate the fittings. You need to be comfortable when you are operating the drawers and opening cabinets in your kitchen to enjoy cooking and spending time in the space. This is an often-overlooked part of the process of picking the right cabinets and drawers for your kitchen.

Picking the Right Cabinets Doesn’t Have to be Hard

If you have been struggling to pick the right cabinets for your needs, you probably just need to do some more research into your unique needs for your kitchen. If your kitchen is a unique shape or size, then you should also consider getting the help of a design expert to help you to pick the right style cabinets for your storage needs. 

There are sometimes limitations that you might not be aware of that will make the cabinets that you have picked a poor choice for your kitchen space. This is where an expert can really help with your design process.

Picking new kitchen cabinets can be a really exciting process and you will love having a refreshed kitchen look when you are done picking out new cabinets and drawers. There is nothing better than a refreshed kitchen and you will love spending time in your newly-minted kitchen once the new cabinets are installed. Picking the right cabinets is important and you should always take the time to be certain of the cabinets that you have selected before you install them.