The decisions you will look at every day
Door style, finish and hardware account for most of what you see and all of what you touch. Here is how we think about each — including where we would talk you out of something.
Seven decisions, in the order they usually get made
Use the tabs to move between categories. Nothing here is a stock list — availability changes, and we confirm what is actually obtainable for your project before you commit to anything.
The door is roughly eighty per cent of what you see, and it is the decision that sets the character of the whole room. These are the four directions most projects settle into.
Shaker
A five-piece frame around a recessed panel, typically a 57 to 70 millimetre rail. The default for a reason: it suits almost every house and dates slowly.
Slim shaker
The same construction with a narrower frame, around 35 to 45 millimetres. Reads more contemporary and gives a slightly larger panel, which matters on narrow doors.
Slab
A flat, frameless front. The most contemporary option and the least forgiving — there is nowhere for a poor finish or an uneven substrate to hide.
Reeded and fluted
Vertical grooves that catch light and add texture. Excellent on an island or a feature run; heavy across an entire kitchen, and harder to clean.
What we would tell you
- A shaker door with a wide rail on a narrow 300-millimetre cabinet leaves a very small panel. On runs with many narrow doors, a slim shaker usually looks better proportioned.
- Slab doors show every substrate imperfection and every fingerprint in a gloss finish. In matte, they are one of the easiest surfaces to live with.
- Mixing two door styles in one room works when there is a clear reason — for example slab on the island and shaker on the perimeter. Mixing without a reason reads as indecision.
These are representative of the directions we work in, not a stocked catalogue. Colours shown on a screen are approximations — we confirm what is actually available for your project and put a physical sample in your hands before you commit to anything.
Samples in your hand, in your room
We narrow the field first
A supplier catalogue with four hundred options is not a choice, it is paralysis. Based on your room, its light and how it gets used, we bring a short list that we think will actually work — and we explain why the others were removed.
Physical samples, always
A screen cannot show you what a finish does in your room at four o’clock in January. We leave samples with you so you can look at them at the times of day you actually use the space, over a couple of days.
We confirm availability before you commit
Finishes are discontinued and lead times change. Nothing goes onto your specification until we have confirmed it can actually be obtained for your project in your timeframe.
The single most common finish regret
Choosing a colour under showroom lighting and seeing it for the first time in a north-facing Toronto kitchen in January. From November to March, natural light here is low, grey and short — and a cool grey that looked sophisticated under bright display lighting can read as flat and cold in the room it is actually going in. Looking at a sample in your own space costs nothing and prevents this entirely.
More on this in kitchen cabinet trends for Toronto homes and using warm wood finishes.
Want to see samples for your room?
Tell us the room, which way it faces and how it gets used. We will bring a short list rather than a catalogue.