So you want new cabinets—but where should you start?
It probably feels like there are so many style and colour options that you don’t know how to make a choice. Fortunately, the process is simpler than you’d think.
At Eurorite, we have enough options to give you variety, but won’t paralyze you with indecision. Each door style and material has pros and cons, so you can pick what would work best for your lifestyle, family, and home.
We’ll break down the major choices—framed vs. unframed, door styles, door materials, and fully assembled vs. ready-to-assemble—so you’re ready to get started on a renovation with cabinets that work for you.
Framed vs. Unframed Cases
Ok, we’re a bit biased here. We only offer unframed cabinets because we think they’re the superior option. We believe in this so strongly that it’s in our name—Eurorite has been creating European-style cabinets (also known as frameless or unframed) since our beginning.
Let’s talk about why.
Unframed cabinets mean the doors cover the entire front of the cabinet with no face frame at all. It creates a very clean look, keeping everything smooth and organized—perfect for a modern kitchen.
The door hinges are dowelled directly to the cabinet box sides inside, keeping the hinges out of sight. Because there’s no frame, the box is extra sturdy and made from thicker material so it doesn’t need to rely on extra pieces to hold its shape. Frameless cabinets have no centre stile, making the inside much easier to access and pull out large pots and pans. Unframed cabinets as a rule are also quieter closing—ideal for not waking up the entire house when you need to grab an early morning cereal breakfast.
Framed cabinets, on the other hand, have a more classic, traditional look, and are popular especially in the US. The doors are mounted to the case on a border frame with a centre stile in the middle to support the entire cabinet. The only problem is that border significantly limits access, space and customization.
Not only is it harder to access the cabinet space because of that frame and centre stile, but you have fewer options when it comes to interior personalization. Our cabinets have dozens of additions you can use to make them uniquely yours, whether interior shelves, pull out drawers, stacking options, or more. The frame limits those options, so we avoid it altogether.
It’s of course ultimately up to you, but with more drawer and cabinet space, a more modern look, and easy access, unframed cabinets are our preferred style to recommend.
Door Styles
Once you’ve picked your cabinet box type, it’s time to pick the door style. This is one of the most fun parts of designing your space. The door style really defines your kitchen and creates the look you’ll want to match with other accessories and appliances.
We offer three types of door styles—raised panel, flat panel, and slab.
Raised Panel
Raised panel doors are more traditional. They feature a raised panel in the centre of the cabinet door and grooved framework on the edges. The door brings texture and depth, making it a classic and exciting choice to bring new life to your kitchen or bathroom.
Flat Panel
Flat panel (or recessed) doors are simple and stylish with an inset centre panel and raised frame. They have a clean look that goes well with almost any style, letting the rest of the kitchen take the stage while they sit elegantly in the background. Some of the best kitchens for this door style are transitional, modern, and contemporary looks, but their flexibility makes it a great choice anywhere.
Slab
As the name suggests, this door style is a simple slab that makes up the entire door. They were first popularized in Europe and became a staple of kitchens along with the European-style cabinet boxes that we use.
Simple and modern, these doors are sleek and are perfect for minimalist or contemporary kitchens. On top of that, they’re extremely practical and easy to clean, making them a very popular choice.
Door Materials
Once you know your style, you need to pick what you want your doors to be made of. Each material type has different benefits, mostly around the specific type of care they need.
Our four door materials are thermofoil, painted MDF, wrapped low pressure laminate, and thermofused laminate.
Thermofoil
Thermofoil doors are created by vacuum forming and heat-bonding a rigid, opaque vinyl film (PVC) to an eco-friendly, furniture-grade medium density fiberboard (MDF) core. Essentially, supermatte thermofoil looks and feels like painted doors, and textured wood thermofoil closely resembles real wood, but both are much easier to take care of and clean.
If you like painted or wood styles, these are an excellent choice. They’re more affordable than painted or wood, more durable, and don’t need all the maintenance that painted wood or MDF, or real stained wood require.
These doors are highly resistant to dents, water damage, and stains, but do need to be protected from high heat and steam.
Painted MDF
Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) is a heavy, uniformly textured wood product with no grain pattern. It’s extremely hard, dense and stiff, making it a very solid door core option.
The door’s silky-smooth texture and high density make it a perfect base for a matte finish paint. Our MDF paint finish is specifically designed for the cabinet and furniture industry and will keep its beautiful finish for years when treated with care.
Wrapped Low Pressure Laminate
To create wrapped low pressure laminate doors, the frames of the doors are 3-dimensionally wrapped with the same melamine that the centre panel is heat bonded with. The core of these doors is eco-friendly, furniture grade medium density fiberboard.
These doors look most similar to framed wood cabinetry doors, but they are lower cost and much easier to care for. Like thermofoil, they’re very resistant to dents, scratches, stains, and water damage, and are extremely easy to clean.
Thermofused Laminate (TFL)
For our thermofused laminate doors, the melamine is heat-bonded to an eco-friendly, furniture grade particle board core, and edged with matching 1mm edge banding. The melamine is usually 1-2 layers of decorative kraft paper, sealed with hard, protective resin.
These doors are easy to clean, and resistant to scratches, dents, stains, and water damage.
If you’re curious how to clean and care for any of these cabinet types, check out our last blog diving into the nitty gritty details.
Fully Assembled vs. Ready to Assemble
Our cabinets come in two options—fully assembled cabinets that just need to be attached to the wall, or ready to assemble (RTA) cabinet kits that you put together yourself before installing.
If you’re not the most handy and want professionals to take care of assembly, pick our fully assembled version so we can do all the cabinet building for you.
Our fully assembled cabinets come with an upgraded drawer box and the ability to choose a few more colours and door styles, but other than that, the available cabinets in Fully Assembled and RTA virtually identical.
Now that you know the ins and outs of cabinet types, you’re ready to pick your style! Check out our cabinet door page to mix and match to find the right combination for you, or contact us for any questions!