Potential Problems With European Style Kitchen Cabinets

If you’re considering purchasing a European style kitchen or bathroom cabinets, then you will be interested in knowing about some of the potential headaches that you may experience throughout the years. This particular style of cupboard has many more enduring qualities than things to be concerned about. However, there are some things you need to be aware of.

Out of Adjustment Hinges
This is one of the most common threads that the European cabinet designs have; the hinges regularly get out of adjustment. There are several brand names that companies use and some seem to be more durable than others when it comes to the doors staying where they were originally intended to be.

Things That Cause the Hinges to Need Adjustments

1) Over sized Doors
The size limit for one door is generally around 21” max. Anything over this size and the hinges are forced to carry more weight than they were actually designed to support.
2) Overextending
Forcing the cabinet door to extend past the opening parameters of the hinges design can cause them to not operate correctly. In some spaces cabinet doors just don’t seem to open far enough for us to reach into the cupboard. When we force the door to open more it creates potential problems with the operation of the hinges.
3) General Use
Because these hinge styles have so many adjustments that are basically locked into place by the tightening of a screw head, over time the screws tend to loosen due to the vibrations that accompany daily use. This causes the doors to become out of adjustment.

Sagging Shelves
European cabinetry are also called frame-less cabinets. Because they do not generally have a support style that extends from the top to the bottom of the large cabinets, upper and base cabinets that are manufactured over 30” tend to have shelves that eventually droop or sag. Of course the remedy for this problem is to just flip the shelves over occasionally.

Not all cabinet companies leave the center style out of the larger cabinets. So this may not be a potential defect to be concerned about.
Particleboard Fabrication

If your cabinets are fabricated out of particleboard, which many of the European cupboard companies use then, you can expect to have problems under the sinks if you ever have a water leak. If the toe bases are fabricated out of flake board, then expect to have swelling in these areas eventually as well.

These few things are the most common among the potential difficulties that you may experience once you start using your European kitchen or bathroom vanity cabinets regularly. Problems with drawers are not common and how well the doors hold up will depend upon the style that you choose.