One major option to consider when buying cabinets is what type of drawer system you would like. At Gillingham Cabinets, the three most common types of drawers we offer are called Metabox, Tandembox, and Dovetail. Here is a quick overview of each type:
Metabox
By far our most common, and therefore our ‘standard’ type of drawer is what we call metabox. This high-quality drawer type consists of metal sides that we purchase from one of our suppliers, with drawer bottoms and backs that are cut to size in our shop. The name metabox is simply what the hardware manufacturer – Blum of Austria – calls them. A picture of a metabox type drawer is at right, or if you prefer – here is a link to more detailed specifications.
As of June 2011, we now offer metabox with a soft-closing option that is much less expensive than other types of soft-close drawers – ask one of our designers about this fantastic cost-saving luxury.
Tandembox
with Blumotion
Like metabox, these premium drawers are made by European hardware manufacturer Blum. The sides are metal and we cut the bottoms and backs of the drawers to fit your cabinets. All of our tandembox drawers are soft-closing and full-extension.
Soft-closing means that the drawers and drawer-slides have a sophisticated mechanism that catches the drawer just before it closes to ensure that it shuts gently. Full-extension means that the drawers open a bit further than a standard drawer so that the entire drawer is outside the cabinet and you can more easily get at items that might have snuck to the back. Here are some more detailed specifications if you’d like to see them.
Dovetail Drawers
Dovetail Drawers are are our finest drawer type. Based on a tried-and-true wood woodworking technique that probably pre-dates written history, they are made of solid wood, and in our case we use a traditional kitchen material – birch.
We make the drawer boxes in our shop
, and the drawer mechanism that mounts the boxes into the cabinets is the same type of high-quality, soft-closing and full-extension hardware from Blum. Here’s what the sides look like after they are “doved” and “tailed” and before they are assembled into a finished drawer box.
Roll-out Shelves/Inner Drawers
Roll-out shelves are special type of drawer that is a bit of a cross between a drawer and a shelf. It is also often called an ‘inner drawer’ because it uses drawer hardware, and is usually inside the cabinet behind a full size door.
The most common place we offer roll-out shelves is in a tall pantry-type cabinet, although we often install them in lower base-cabinets and can even put them in upper wall-cabinets should you so require it. The photo at right shows a typical installation in a pantry cabinet. We have roll-out shelf versions of all three drawer types – metabox, tandembox, and dovetail.
I hope that clarifies the differences between our three main drawer options – feel free to ask any questions in the comments below, or drop by our showrooms to speak with one of our designers where we will be happy to let you try each of these different drawer types out for yourself!
If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested to read another in our Series on Cabinet Choices, such as the one on Cabinet Interiors: White Melamine, Maple Mel, and Birch-Plywood or on Door Style Options: Wood vs Non-wood.