Framed vs Frameless Cabinets: What Yakima Kitchens Actually Need

Published July 1, 2026

Every kitchen project reaches the same fork in the road: face-frame or frameless. Both are solid ways to build a cabinet, and the right answer depends on your kitchen, your storage habits, and the look you are after. Here is how a cabinetmaker sizes it up before drawing a single box.

What the Two Terms Actually Mean

A face-frame cabinet has a flat wood frame across the front of the box, the traditional American style you grew up with. A frameless cabinet, sometimes called European or full-access, skips that frame and hangs the doors directly on the box using the 32mm system. That one structural difference drives almost everything else, from how wide the openings are to how the doors sit.

Access and Storage

Frameless cabinets give you slightly wider drawers and openings because there is no frame stealing an inch on each side. If you load heavy pots into deep drawers, that extra width adds up. Face-frame boxes give up a little opening width but gain a rigid front that many people find easier to align in a long run, which matters in an older kitchen off North 40th Avenue where the wall is not straight.

The Look

Face-frame cabinets pair naturally with inset doors and a classic, furniture-like feel. Frameless leans modern, with full-overlay doors that sit close together and show almost no gap. Neither is better; they are just different design languages. We build both, and often the deciding factor is simply which one matches the trim and character already in your home.

Cost and Build Time

Pricing overlaps more than people expect. Both styles use the same cabinet-grade plywood, dovetailed drawer boxes, and Blum soft-close hardware when built right, so the bigger cost drivers are wood species, door style, and finish rather than framed versus frameless. We lay the numbers out in writing so you can compare apples to apples before deciding.

How to Decide

The honest answer is that most Yakima kitchens work beautifully either way. Bring us your room, your storage frustrations, and a few photos of kitchens you like, and we will walk you through both at a free in-home measure. If a full remodel is on the table, see how we approach custom kitchen cabinets, and when you are ready to talk specifics you can contact us directly.

Planning a kitchen in the Yakima Valley? Call Grasmash at (509) 605-4407 for a free design consultation with the cabinetmaker who will build your project.