Cabinet Door Styles: 11 Popular Types To Choose From

By: Andrew Saladino | 10 min
Last Updated: May 12th, 2024

The right kitchen cabinets can elevate the desired look and feel of your cooking space. From simple shakers to intricate raised cathedrals, there's a cabinet door style to complement your taste and improve the functionality of your home.

Cabinet door styles can be as simple or elaborate as you make them, depending on what works best for your design. Here's a quick breakdown of the 11 most popular cabinet styles available.

Cabinet Door Styles

1. Slab Cabinet Doors

Best for: Modern, contemporary, or Mid-Century Modern kitchens

Slab cabinet doors - also known as flat-panel doors - are flat and frameless, perfect for those looking to design a modern kitchen.

When they feature natural wood tones like chestnut or maple, slab cabinet doors can complement a warmer, more traditional look. Inversely, painted slab cabinets work well with a modern or industrial aesthetic. Due to their sleek appearance, they work best with linear cabinet hardware such as our brush satin nickel handles.

2. Shaker Recessed Cabinet Doors

Best for: Modern, contemporary, transitional, or traditional kitchens

Simple yet beautiful, shaker cabinets have enjoyed widespread appeal since first popularized over 150 years ago. These cupboards feature recessed panels and come with simple, crisp inside and outside edges.

Although it's a traditional cabinet style, it's easy to modernize shaker cabinets due to their clean lines and minimal design. If you have loud elements in your kitchen, such as a colorful backsplash or busy wall decor, it's best to opt for something simple like these ice white shaker cabinets.

3. Slim Shaker Cabinet Doors

Best for: Small, modern, and minimalist kitchens

Slim shaker cabinets, sometimes referred to as slender or petit shaker cabinets, are a modern variation of traditional shaker cabinets. This cabinet door style still boasts the same clean lines, recessed panel doors, and square-shaped components as traditional shakers, but offers a more contemporary feel with thinner frames and panels.

In contrast to their broader counterparts, slim shaker cabinets are best suited for kitchens with limited space or those aiming for a modern and minimalist look. The narrower profiles contribute to a streamlined appearance, making them an excellent choice for smaller kitchens or spaces where maximizing storage and maintaining a clean, uncluttered design is crucial.

4. Traditional Square Raised Cabinet Doors

Best for: Traditional, transitional, and craftsman kitchens

Traditional square raised cabinets have elevated panels in the same shape as the cabinets themselves. This style brings a level of depth to your cabinets, creating shadows with a textured profile.

Square raised cabinets grant you the flexibility to choose a more intricate or simple design depending on the style of your kitchen. Whether you're drawn to a more detailed, traditional aesthetic or a simple, contemporary one, these cabinets can be a perfect fit for you.

5. Arch Raised Panel Cabinet Doors

Best for: Traditional, farmhouse, or cottage-style kitchens

Arch cabinet doors have deep grooves with the top shaped in an arch. They're a popular choice for larger kitchens with more traditional design elements, such as granite countertops or tile backsplashes. If you want to add definition to your cabinets without taking away from other design components in your kitchen, these are a great option.

6. Cathedral Raised Cabinet Doors

Best for: Traditional, craftsman, or Tuscan kitchens

If you're looking for cabinets that radiate refinement, cathedral raised cabinet doors could be the best fit. Similar to arch cabinet doors, cathedral cabinet doors feature a raised arch design with curved lines reminiscent of a cathedral window.

Keep these cabinets light to create a breezy elegance throughout your kitchen or paint or stain them dark for a richer, more traditional feel. These cupboard doors best complement high ceilings for an overall regal atmosphere.

7. Double Arched Cabinet Doors

Best for: Traditional, timeless kitchens

Double arched cabinets have a distinctive design characterized by two graceful arches on the central panel within the cabinet door frame. The dual arches often mirror each other, creating a balanced and symmetrical look that can serve as a focal point in a traditional kitchen design.

With their intricate details and curved lines, double arched cabinet doors look best in spaces with a more formal and timeless aesthetic.

8. Beadboard Cabinet Doors

Best for: French country, farmhouse, cottage-style, or rustic kitchens

Beadboard cabinet doors can help add a rustic feel to your kitchen. This style has vertical planks fitted together with small ridges known as beads between each plank. You can choose to have them only on the doors or add matching components to the drawers.

For those fond of cottage or farmhouse style kitchens, these cabinets effortlessly complement wood ceiling beams and distressed furniture.

9. Mullion Cabinet Doors

Best for: Modern, French country, or traditional kitchens

If you have a unique set of fine china or intricate crystal, mullion cabinet doors are a great option for displaying prized kitchenware while still keeping items clean and protected.

These doors have mullions or moldings that divide an open frame. Mullions either hold individual panes of glass or serve as decorative accents over a single pane of glass. Mullion cabinet doors come in infinite patterns, making this the most customizable cabinet style.

10. Open Frame Cabinet Doors

Best for: Minimalist, modern, and farmhouse kitchens

Like mullion cabinets, open frame cabinet doors are another popular choice for those looking to add an airy openness to their cabinets - sans mullion.

These cabinets traditionally feature an open frame with a single glass pane insert, resulting in an unobstructed view of your cabinet contents. However, you may use any material less than one-quarter inch thick as an insert, such as lattice or rattan. These cabinets look best in modern, minimalist kitchens as accent cabinets or for all the upper cabinets.

11. Louvered Cabinet Doors

Best for: Farmhouse, rustic, and French country kitchens

Similar to old-fashioned shutters, louvered doors have fixed, horizontal slats that allow air and light to pass through.

The improved ventilation makes these cabinets a stylish and functional choice for kitchen cabinets, especially pantries and places where you keep other dry goods. Although most commonly seen on windows or closet doors, they can add a unique style to a kitchen or laundry room. These are a top choice for adding a classic homestyle twist to a modern kitchen.

Types of Cabinet Doors

Once you've chosen your favorite cabinet door style, you'll need to pick the type of cabinet door for your design. Types of cabinet doors can be broken into five categories:

1. Framed cabinets
2. Frameless cabinets
3. Full overlay cabinets
4. Partial overlay cabinets
5. Inset cabinets

Framed

Framed cabinet doors, also known as American style cabinets, are characterized by a face frame along the front perimeter of the cabinet. You can identify framed cabinets by the visible trim boards that are used to strengthen the construction of the cabinet box.

Framed cabinets are most commonly found in traditional, farmhouse, and transitional kitchens. Because of the added face frame, these cabinets are more durable and easier to install than their frameless counterparts. However, they offer less storage space and aren't as easy to customize after installation.

Frameless

Compared to framed cabinets, frameless - or European style - cabinets don't have a face frame along the front. Instead of a frame, the cabinet doors are directly attached to the sides of the cabinet box. This design maximizes storage space and creates a more contemporary and seamless appearance.

While frameless cabinets do not have the support of a face frame, today's cabinet materials are sturdy enough to make them obsolete. However, frameless cabinet boxes are often thicker to compensate for the lack of face frame, which makes them heavy and difficult to install.

Full Overlay

Full overlay cabinet doors cover the entire face of the cabinet, leaving little to no space between adjacent doors and drawers. In this design, the doors are typically larger than the cabinet openings, effectively overlaying the entire front surface and concealing the cabinet box. This results in a sleek, seamless look with minimal visible framework.

Full overlay cabinets are popular in modern and contemporary kitchen designs, as they create a clean and streamlined appearance. This style also allows for more design possibilities, as it emphasizes the door style and finish rather than the exposed cabinet structure.

Partial Overlay

Partial overlay cabinet doors cover only a portion of the cabinet face, leaving a visible gap between adjacent doors and drawers. In this design, the doors are smaller than the cabinet openings, leaving part of the cabinet frame visible. The amount of overlay, or the extent to which the doors cover the cabinet face, can vary.

Partial overlay cabinets offer a more traditional look compared to full overlay cabinets. The visible frame provides a defined outline to each door and drawer, contributing to a classic and timeless appearance.

Inset

Inset cabinet doors are set within the cabinet's frame rather than overlapping or overlaying the frame. In this design, the doors and drawers are precisely fitted into the cabinet openings. The inset doors are typically flush with the cabinet frame's front face.

The mastery and attention to detail required for inset cabinet construction contribute to their timeless and sophisticated aesthetic. This style is often associated with quality craftsmanship and is a popular choice for those who appreciate traditional, elegant designs.

How To Choose a Kitchen Cabinet Door Style

Picking your perfect cabinet doors shouldn't be a hasty decision. This is the chance to give your kitchen a major organization and style upgrade.

To get the most out of your renovation, consider the following:

By Price

Your cabinets are one of the most important elements of your kitchen design, and your budget should reflect that. As a general rule of thumb, cabinets make up about 30% of kitchen remodeling budgets. With this in mind, plan to set realistic guidelines for what you'll be able to afford.

Cabinets are priced based on material, style, quantity, and any customizations you want to incorporate. Make a list of what you must have for your cabinets and research less expensive alternatives to help you achieve the same look. For example, you could purchase ready-to-assemble cabinets at a cheaper price point instead of more costly pre-assembled or custom cabinets if you're willing to put in some extra work.

By Kitchen Layout

Not all cabinets will work in certain spaces. Consider your kitchen layout and how you'd like to organize it for maximum space and efficiency.

If you're working with a smaller kitchen layout, such as a galley kitchen, you may want to consider a simple cabinet design so as not to overwhelm the rest of the space. On the contrary, you may want to add more detailed cabinets to large U-shaped or G-shaped kitchens to add more warmth and visual interest to your cooking space.

By Function

Your kitchen is the heart of your home, and improving its functionality should be paramount when designing a remodel.

For example, messy cooks or busy parents may prefer cabinets with fewer grooves and details for simple cleaning. You can also choose to have wall cabinets reach the ceiling or incorporate custom features like lazy Susans to maximize space in a small kitchen. Make a list of things you'd like to improve in your current kitchen - chances are there's a solution that'll work for your design and budget.

By Style

Are you leaning toward a more modern or traditional aesthetic? A light and airy or dark and dramatic color palette? Is natural wood grain a must for the design you have in mind? These are questions you must ask yourself when choosing your kitchen cabinets.

Cabinets should complement your existing decor to help rooms flow seamlessly together - unless you're using your remodel as an opportunity to revamp your home decor.

Cabinet Door Styles FAQs

To ensure you have all the details you need to make your best decision, we've included a list of answers to the most common kitchen cabinet door style questions.

What are the most popular cabinet door styles?

The two most popular styles of cabinet doors are shaker and traditional square raised. These styles have adapted to over a century’s worth of design trends and are still a staple amongst most aesthetics, from industrial to traditional.

However, slim shaker and slab cabinets have become mainstays in contemporary kitchen design, loved for their simple construction and sleek appearance.

What is the least expensive cabinet door style?

The least expensive cabinet door style to manufacture is slab cabinets, which are flat and frameless. However, there are many affordable options for different styles of cupboards, such as manufactured wood or unfinished cabinets.

Once you've perused the options of cabinet door styles, consider which color and stain will work best in your kitchen. Order cabinet door samples to help visualize the final look in your homes.

For more design inspiration, explore our kitchen cabinet gallery to see real examples of how cabinet styles can complete different aesthetics.