Sheet Boards Used to Build Kitchen Cabinets

Unless you are going for expensive, high quality kitchen cabinets that are made of solid wood, most times, you’re going to get cabinets that are made of one of three products: particle board, medium density fiber board, or plywood. There are a lot of differences about each kind, but the main thing that goes with them is that they are inexpensive. If cost is an issue, you might consider getting cabinets made of these types of materials. However, here is a more comprehensive guide to the three different types of “wood” that are used to make cabinets, especially kitchen cabinets.

Particle Board: Particle board is actually not complete wood. Instead, it is bits of wood, saw dust, and other wood products that are glued together. However, it’s not an actual glue that binds the ingredients together, but instead, pressure. The one great thing about particle board is that it has an incredible screw holding ability, so they tend to stay together. The downfall about particle board is that your cabinets aren’t actually made of full wood. Instead, it’s the scraps of wood left over that are fused together with pressure that make up your kitchen cabinets.

Medium Density Fiberboard: This is similar to particle board in that it is made up of wood by-products. The main difference is that the by-products are higher quality and finer parts. It is known in the woodworking business as a top quality core material and can definitely be useful in your kitchen cabinets. If you want to have curved cabinets, this is the type of board that would be used because, unlike particle board, it can actually be bent and shaped in the way that you want your cabinets to look. It’s more expensive than particle board, but still very reasonable.

Plywood: This type of wood is actually wood in the simplest of ways. You take individual sheets of wood and combine them together to create plywood. What a lot of people tend to do when they are using plywood to construct their cabinets is cover it in wood veneer of some sort. This adds a whole new level of class to it because of the quality. While it is not solid wood, it can be fooled as solid wood because of the density of the plywood and the wood veneer on top of it. Going this route isn’t a bad idea and can be cost effective to create amazing looking cabinets.

Whatever material you decide to use for your kitchen cabinets is up to you. Real, whole wood cabinets look nicer, but the downfall of them is that they cost a lot of money and they do absorb moisture. The sheet built cabinets (particle board, medium density fiberboard, and plywood) don’t look as nice, but they hold together pretty decently and don’t carry any moisture, so there is no concern of the wood rotting. In the end, it comes down to personal preference and the amount of money you can afford to spend.