How to Choose Cabinets for the Kitchen & Bathroom

Many elements throughout your home can be both functional and decorative. For example, the cabinets you choose are serving an important purpose. They are storing various items, such as the dishes in your kitchen or the towels for your bathroom. However, these cabinets are more than just practical. Whether they're in the kitchen or the bathroom, they are a major focal point of the room and should be chosen carefully.

Kitchen

• 1

  Take stock of all the items your need to store in your kitchen, including regular dishes, appliances and other household items. The cabinets you choose need to be high, wide and deep enough to store these items.

• 2

  Leave some room to grow. Odds are, you will eventually buy more things that you want to store in your kitchen. Make sure you have enough cabinet space to handle your kitchen's growing needs.

• 3

  Pick a material. The material you choose will largely depend on the look you want and how much maintenance each required. Research your options and check them out in person if possible. Some common choices include hardwood, lacquered finishes, veneers and laminates.

• 4

  Look closely at both common types of kitchen cabinet design. Face-frame cabinets have a boxed frame around the outside of each cabinet, while frameless have no frame and the cabinet door attaches directly to the outside.

• 5

  Find hardware that matches the rest of your kitchen's décor. The hinges and handles for your kitchen cabinets need to match the rest of your kitchen. For example, if you have all stainless kitchen appliances, you would not want to choose gold cabinet hardware.

Bathroom

• 1

  Figure out where you want to place the cabinets in your bathroom and what you want to store in them. This will help you determine the proper quantity and size of cabinets. Some common locations for bathroom cabinets include against an empty wall, above the toilet or sink or around a vanity area.

• 2

  Look at all of the finish and material options available. Your bathroom can get quite moist, so materials with water resistance are important to prevent mold. The finishes and looks are seemingly endless, so if possible, go to local hardware stores to check out options in person. You can also opt for custom-made bathroom cabinets to match a more original bathroom décor.

• 3

  Keep your bathroom décor in mind as you choose hardware for your bathroom cabinets. The hardware needs to match the fixtures in your bathroom. For example, if your bathroom fixtures are copper, choose copper hardware for the cabinets over silver or nickel.

• 4

  Research the difference between frame-face and frameless cabinets, just as you did with the kitchen cabinets. Again, these cabinet types are just as they sound: a fame around the cabinet for frame-face and no frame for frameless. The hinges of frameless cabinets can be hidden. Some homeowners don't mind the look of hinges in their kitchen, but prefer to have no visible hinges in the bathroom since bathroom cabinets are often a much lighter color than kitchen cabinets.