Kitchen cabinets have a great influence on the overall aesthetic and décor of your kitchen. Before choosing cabinets you must decide first the kind of kitchen design you would prefer. Once you choose the design or theme of your kitchen, select a cabinet style that complements the space. Apart from adding glamor and beauty to your kitchen, kitchen cabinets keep your cooking area clean and organized.
The European style kitchen cabinets are the latest trend to influence the market, that can add elan and functionality to a cooking space.
Appearance and Functionality of European Style Kitchen Cabinets
European style cabinetry has an extremely sleek and ultra-modern appearance. This cabinet design displays minimalist aesthetics with streamlined, clean, and well-defined form. These cabinets have a bold and streamlined appearance with flat, unembellished doors, as well as sleek and polished hardware.
European style kitchen cabinets do not include face frames and feature door spaces between the cabinets. As a result, these cabinets have concealed hinges and flush doors. European style kitchen cabinets are an ideal choice in a modern kitchen that optimizes space and facilitate easy access to stored items. These cabinets come in beautiful colors, and varied finishes, like glossy and matte, that enhances the visual appeal of your kitchen décor.
This style of kitchen cabinets possesses linear forms, straight edges, and angular lines. Geometric shapes, such as rectangles instead of arches, highly stylized design, and graceful lines are some of the most prominent features of European style of cabinetry. These features make European kitchen cabinets one of the most favorable cabinetry choices in most of the kitchen renovating projects.
Features of European Style Kitchen Cabinets
Here, we discuss the many features of European style kitchen cabinets to help you know it better.
- Full Overlay Design
European style cabinetry has a distinct characteristic of having a full overlay design. This kind of construction gives an ultra-sleek and seamless look to the cabinet and also enhances the functionality of the cabinet with maximum storage space and full access feature.
Frameless cabinets have full overlay doors, which are directly fixed to the cabinet box. This type of structure includes concealed hinges. Full overlay doors provide a smooth design by hiding the frame behind the cabinet doors.
The frameless cabinet design ensures easy access and maximum storage capacity. It does not include vertical stiles or partitions, that can be a hindrance to store large items and kitchen utensils.
- Flat Panel Doors
European style cabinetry makes use of simple cabinet door styles, such as the flat panel door and the slab style door. These doors have a minimalist look and do not come with additional embellishment. These cabinet doors are built from solid, single, plain flat wood.
- Wide Range of Colors
European style cabinets are found in a wide range of colors. They come in neutral shades such as white, taupe, gray, and beige, as well as in bold tones, like bright reds, oranges, and lime greens.
- Finishes
European style cabinets usually possess flat, smooth surfaces with a highly polished look. This is obtained by making use of laminates or high gloss paints, metal hardware, vinyl, and glass.
The high-gloss finish is mostly common with European style cabinetry and this finish is achieved by the use of various finishing processes. Few techniques that are utilized in producing highly reflective surfaces in these cabinets are brushing or rolling on high gloss paint coats, application of lacquering, laminating, and polyurethane, and spray painting using a compressor.
Another cabinet finish associated with European style cabinets is flat matte finish, which differs strikingly from the glossy finish.
- Plain, Minimalist Hardware
Use of sleek, unadorned, and understated hardware is another unique aspect of European style kitchen cabinets. Cabinet door pulls, knobs, and handles typically feature plain and subtle forms, which perfectly complement the streamlined look of this cabinet design. Usually, this kind of kitchen cabinet hardware has polished, satin, or brushed finish. This hardware is designed in a way to enhance the efficiency of usage and convenience.
- Hidden Hinges
European style cabinetry makes use of concealed hinges on the cabinet doors. This is yet another exclusive feature of these cabinets that facilitates in ease of use and provide an extra seamless design. The hinges in this cabinetry are mounted on the inner sides of the cabinet that hides their location. After installing these hinges, the doors of the cabinet become fully adjustable. To carry out small adjustments in the cabinet doors, only rotating the screws with the help of a basic screwdriver will help accomplish the task.
European style cabinet doors fitted with hidden hinges may be removed effortlessly, which can be done even by the beginners. However, this hardware need not be detached from the cabinet door while doing any adjustment on the door, like making proper door alignment to correct the gaps between the doors or the cabinet walls.
European style concealed hinges offer maximum security to the cabinet doors and also offer more convenience while carrying out the cleaning task of the cabinet surface. Furthermore, the concealed cabinet hinges are on the lower price range.
- Self-Closing System
The most amazing feature of European style kitchen cabinets is that the doors have a soft closing or self-closing ability due to the use of advanced cabinet door hinges. This kind of mechanism aids in eliminating the noise of the cabinet doors being slammed hard when closed. If the user forcefully closes the cabinet door of this cabinet, the motion is slowed down and gently glided to its closed position due to the presence of a spring. This spring helps to control and reduce the force with which the cabinet door is closed.
In Conclusion
European style kitchen cabinets are best suited for homeowners, who favor contemporary and eclectic look in their kitchen, without compromising the efficiency. Available in a broad range of colors, designs, finishes, and styles, these cabinets are the best combination of optimum functionality and visual appeal.