Another key choice when buying cabinets is what material to select for the interior of your cabinets. At Gillingham Cabinets, our three main options for cabinet case material are White Melamine, Maple Melamine, and Birch-Plywood Interiors. All of our cabinets are made from low-VOC, CARB-compliant wood sheets to safeguard both the environment and the health of your family.
White Melamine Interiors
White Melamine is by far our most popular option for several good reasons and is our standard option when quoting cabinet prices.
White is a good choice for the interior of cabinets, because most cabinets don’t have lighting inside them, so white simply makes the insides as bright as possible. Melamine is a durable, easy to clean, modern material and is applied to a 100% recycled wood-core of particleboard. It’s widely used in the kitchen cabinet industry and yields sturdy cabinets when constructed properly. Our standard core thickness is 16mm (5/8 inch) thick, but you may find some manufacturers using flimsier 1/2 inch material.
Maple Melamine Interiors
One attractive upgrade we offer is for the interiors to be made from melamine that is coloured and patterned to look like the wood maple. It’s a richer colour that is still light enough to reflect a lot of light inside the cabinets.
It offers the same thickness of core material and the same easy-cleaning durability as our white melamine option, and is made from the same 100% recycled wood-core material.
We charge a bit more for this option as the cost of the raw material is a bit higher and because respecting the grain pattern reduces the number of pieces we can cut from a given sheet of wood, but the warmth of the colour is well worth it to some of our customers.
Birch-Ply Interiors
The most durable cabinets we build are made from birch-plywood. It’s an attractive, premium choice made from the classic kitchen furniture wood – birch.
Plywood is made up of thin sheets peeled from whole trees and laid on top of each other in alternating directions. For our customers who want the most solid cases we build – for instance our friends at a local firehall – birch-ply interiors are the most solid choice.
It is light in colour and finished with clear lacquer so it also keeps the interior of your cabinets both bright and easy to clean.
Other Options
Because we are an agile local cabinet shop we can often meet your needs and special requests, such as cabinets built with MDF cores and custom laminates – just ask!
If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested to read another in our Series on Cabinet Choices, such as the one on Metabox, Tandembox, and Dovetail Drawers or on Door Style Options: Wood vs Non-wood.