Wall Reveals When Designing Cabinets

When you’re in the process of designing your kitchen cabinets, it is important to consider what the reveals will be like at the end of walls where cupboards get installed. Here’s an example of what I mean. Your upper wall cabinetry, getting installed on either side of the kitchen window, should have the same setback on both sides of the window.

So what are the industry standards for the cupboard set backs? In actuality there really is not a set standard but there are things that must be allowed for such as curtains around windows, radiuses on countertops and door jams or casings. It’s items such as these that will help you determine how far back from the end of a wall that the cupboards should stop.

Door Jam Areas-I like to use a four inch dimension as a good starting place for setting the cabinets back from a raw door jam opening. This will allow enough room for standard sized door casings to be installed. If you or the homeowner is planning on having a special sized decorative molding around the doors then the four inch dimension may need to be bigger. To read more on this type of situation, here’s an article called, How Far Back Form a Doorway Should Cabinets Get Installed? https://fixmycabinet.com/2009/05/28/how-far-back-from-a-doorway-should-cabinets-get-installed/

Wall Reveals Next to Windows-When fabricating custom cabinets, we have always used a two inch increment for setting the upper cabinets back from the inside of the windows edges. This doesn’t necessarily apply with store bought cabinetry from places like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Because these home center’s cabinetry come in pre determined increments, you have to just work with whatever the set back is. On one set of kitchen cupboards the wall reveal may be four inches and on the next job only two and a half.

Cabinet Set Backs for Radius Counter Corners-Usually a two inch countertop overhang will cover several sized radius’s manufactures use on their kitchen countertops. I always try to design my base cabinets so that they are set back from a finished wall end about two to two and a half inches. The counter can then have an overhang large enough to allow for a 2” to 3” radius corner.

These are a few of the basics that go along with designing kitchen cabinets or even bathroom vanities for that matter. The reveals that you allow will be determined by the surrounding elements such as curtains, blinds, rounded corners on counters and door casing sizes. There is no set standard setback for base cabinets from wall ends but as you can tell it is important to really consider what is going to be installed around or near the cabinets. These wall reveals are a very important part kitchen cabinetry design.