Cabinet Construction

"As long as they look pretty, that's all I care about..."

If this is what you're thinking when making your cabinet purchase then let's take a minute to think about what happens to the cabinet over time. Doors and drawers will be open and shut hundreds, maybe thousands of times during the life of your kitchen. Heavy loads are likely to end up in the drawers and on the cabinet bottoms, not to mention the wear and tear on the finish. The way to combat this normal wear is to build the cabinet to stand up to much more than the average wear.

We accomplish this by using ¾” UV coated hardwood veneer core plywood.  The cabinet boxes are glued and screwed together.  Our face frame cabinets are made with full ¾ hardwood frames that match the material used in the doors and drawer fronts.  In our frameless cabinets, extra bracing made from ¾” material to add strength.  All of these extra steps, as well as the quality of the materials and assembly process add to the longevity of the cabinet box.  The stability of the cabinet case is critical to having cabinets that last for many years of daily use.

Be careful when you shop!

There seems to be a disturbing trend in some of the cabinets being sold in the big home centers. Some newer cabinet companies are producing sub-standard cabinet cases to cut production costs, but are installing "soft-close drawer slides which give a quality feel to the drawer operation, however the structure of the cabinet is sometimes as thin as 3/8 plywood.

A cabinet box made out of this thin material will absolutely lessen the life of the cabinets.  They will get out-of-square over time leading to doors that are crooked and drawers that don’t shut properly.

Case Construction (the unsung hero)

The cabinet case or "carcass" as it's called in the business, has the job of supporting the drawers and shelves full of pots and pans, dishes, silverware and some things that you may have forgotten about for years. This is the part of cabinet that is not dressed up with fancy moldings, or stains and most of it isn't even visible, but it is critical to the strength and durability of the cabinet.

Justice Custom Cabinetry and Furniture starts with a cabinet box that is made by using ¾” UV coated hardwood veneer core plywood.  The cabinet boxes are glued and screwed together.  Our face frame cabinets are made with full ¾ hardwood frames that match the material used in the doors and drawer fronts.  In our frameless cabinets, extra bracing made from ¾” material to add strength.  All of these extra steps, as well as the quality of the materials and assembly process add to the longevity of the cabinet box.  You will find that the major cabinet companies don't even offer 3/4 plywood as an upgrade option, and the ones that do, charge heavily for it. And, yes it does make a difference.

Drawer Box Construction

We have only one standard drawer box. Our standard drawer box is an upgrade at most other cabinet companies. We use solid 5/8 maple drawer boxes with dovetail joinery. The dovetail joint is a tried and true method of assuring the drawer box stays together for many years while looking beautiful at the same time. Nothing says quality like dovetail drawer boxes, and at Justice Custom Cabinetry and Furniture you will get this "upgrade as standard equipment.

Drawer Slides

We use Blum soft-close full extension drawer slides exclusively.  We believe these to be the best slides available.  No matter how hard you push the drawer shut, it will not slam.  Once again, this upgrade on most other cabinets, offered by other companies is standard equipment on our cabinets.  We know from experience that the quality of the drawer slide is as critical as the cabinet construction.   We build these things to last!

Door and Drawer Front Construction

All doors are made from solid hard wood materials.  Whether you choose a slab door or intricate raised panel door, you can be sure that the material used is the finest quality solid wood available.

Door Hinges

We also use Blum euro hinges (concealed hinges) on all of our cabinets, unless the design calls for decorative hinges that are meant to be seen.  Once again these Blum hinges have been tried and true.  We have been using them for years.