Drawers, doors and hardware

The fine sizing: overlay or inset, slide type, box dimensions and clearance. This is where a cabinet stands or falls.

Buy the hardware before you cut

Note This is the most important sentence in this chapter. Drawer slides and hinges prescribe a clearance, and that clearance differs per brand and type. Buy them first, read the specified clearance, and enter it here. A drawer box one millimetre too wide will not go in, and you cannot make it longer again.

Doors

You add a door to a compartment with + Door. For one door across several compartments, tap an adjoining one as well: Tap an adjacent compartment for one door across multiple compartments.

Overlay: The door sits in front of the carcass and covers the side. This is the ordinary kitchen way: easier, because small inaccuracies in the carcass do not show.
Inset: The door sits inside the carcass, flush with the front. Nicer, but far stricter: the carcass must be square and the gap all round must be right. Inset: sits behind a door
Hinge left: Which side the door hinges on. Two doors makes two that meet in the middle.
Gap (inset): The gap all round on an inset door. Too tight and the door binds in damp weather; too wide and it looks sloppy.
Centre gap: The gap between two doors meeting in the middle.

The overlay is calculated automatically: fully over the outer wall, half over a shared divider (minus half the center gap).

If you mix overlay and inset, the tool asks whether that is intended: There is already an overlay door in this cabinet (sometimes required because there is a drawer behind it). Do you really want to mix overlay and inset doors?

Drawers

A drawer consists of a box (two sides, a front and back panel, a bottom) and a front you see. The tool calculates all those sizes, but only if you give it the right clearance.

Slide type: Side is the ordinary side-mount slide, Bottom sits under the box and is invisible, Undermount is the concealed type you see in kitchens. Each type wants a different clearance.
Clearance/side: The space per side between the drawer box and the compartment. This number is in the datasheet of your slides; with side-mount slides 12.5 or 13 mm per side is common. box width = compartment minus twice this clearance.
Box depth: How deep the box becomes. Usually slightly less than the cabinet depth, so the drawer runs free.
Box thickness: The sheet thickness of the drawer sides. Often thinner than the carcass, for instance 12 mm.
Bottom thickness: The thickness of the drawer bottom. For light contents hardboard or 6 mm is enough; for cutlery or tools take thicker.
Height margin: Space above and below the box, so it goes in and out smoothly.
Setback: How far the box sits behind the front. Partly determines the net depth of the drawer.

With More drawers and Fewer drawers you change the number of drawers in a compartment. The tool spreads the heights, unless you choose otherwise under Distribution.

What hardware you need

The tool counts the hardware from your design. Counts follow from your cabinet; you choose the exact type. You find it under What do I need.

hinges, in the variant matching your door type: full overlay, half overlay or inset.
drawer slides (set), one set per drawer.
shelf supports, for 2 adjustable shelves.
handles, optional.
closet rods and rod holders (2 per rod).
wall anchors (anti-tip), to the wall, into the studs.

Note Prices are indicative (DIY store); type and store determine the price.