Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturing Dimension Standards

I have been custom fabricating kitchen cabinets for over twenty seven years.
Manufacturing dimensions (sizes) fit into specific standards that are repeatedly used. Let’s take a look at what measurements are commonly used for building kitchen cupboards.

I will also briefly touch on what size the countertops should be built for the main top and also for raised bar counters.

Base Cabinet Sizes
To get the best usage out of the four foot wide by eight foot (4 x 8) long boards base cabinetry depths and heights should remain consistent with the following standard dimensions.


Finished lower cupboard height: Thirty four and a half inches (341/2”)
Finished base cabinetry depth: Twenty four inches (24”)

The actual box storage height of the base cabinetry falls in the neighborhood of thirty and one quarter inches (301/4”).

This leaves the height of the toe base at about four and one quarter inches (41/4”).

Upper Wall Cupboard Dimensions
These calculations will be based upon the standard height soffit which is eighty four inches (84”). If you are dealing with an eight foot high (96”) ceiling you can leave a twelve inch (12”) open area above the wall cabinetry.

n some custom kitchens the ceilings are ten feet tall. In such a case you need to add to the height of the uppers. just keep the height from the floor to the bottom of the upper cabinet at fifty four (54″).

Finished wall cabinet height: Thirty inches (30”)
Overall depth for the upper case: Twelve inches (12”)

Door and Drawer Front Dimensions
When the base cabinet has a drawer over the door the standard sizes are twenty four inches (24”) for the door and six inches (6”) for the decorative drawer face.

Drawer Stack Decorative Fronts
The standard combination of height sizes for a stack of base cabinet drawer fronts are 6”,6”,9”,9” or 6”, 6”, 6”, and 12”. These sizes allow for margins between the doors of one eight of an inch (1/8”).

Drawer Sizes For Base Cabinetry
The inside clear depth from front to back of the base cabinet is going to be in the arena of about twenty three and a quarter inches. The standard depth of most manufactures’ drawers can range from twenty one inches (21”) deep to twenty three inches (23”) in depth.

Toe Base Manufacturing Standard Depth
The toe kick-plate should be three inches less than the over all base cabinet dimension, including the door. This means that if the case depth is twenty four (24”) and the door is three quarters inches (3/4”) thick, the overall is twenty four and three quarters inches (24 ¾”). With this being the case, the toe-base should be manufactured at twenty one and three quarters deep (21 ¾”) overall.

Counters should be twenty five and one quarter inches (25 1/4”) deep by one and a half inches (1 ½”) high or thick.

Adjustable Shelves Standards
The size of the adjustable shelves widths will be determined by the style of clip or pin that are being used to support the shelves. The depth dimension of the kitchen cabinet shelves should be one quarter inches (1/4”) less than the inside depth of the case. Only when there’s a center style or something special is the size calculated differently. For instance if you were manufacturing an upper cabinet to have a spice-rack on the backside of the door the adjustable shelves would be cut six inches (6”) less to allow room for the spice rack to miss the shelves when the kitchen cabinet door is closed.