Kitchen Cabinet Design Software: What a Kitchen Needs From It
A kitchen is many cabinets in runs, the gaps where the runs meet a wall, a sink, a handful of appliances and a set of fronts, and all of it ends up as parts on a sheet. Software that draws one cabinet well still has to cope with the rest. These are six things to check in any kitchen cabinet design software, and what CabDesign does about each one.
The short version
A kitchen tests software harder than a single cabinet does, because the pieces have to meet. Six checks cover it, and you can run each one in a few minutes on a kitchen you already know.
| 1. The cabinets | Does the catalog hold the kinds of cabinet a kitchen is made of? |
|---|---|
| 2. The room | Do the walls, windows and doors take part in the plan? |
| 3. The gaps | What happens in the space between the last cabinet and the wall, and at a corner? |
| 4. The fixtures | Do the sink and the appliances sit in the plan and make room for themselves? |
| 5. Construction and hardware | Do your construction choices and your hardware follow onto every cabinet? |
| 6. The parts | Does the same job give you the cut list, the labels and a quote? |
On this page
What a kitchen asks of software
A single cabinet is a box with a door. A kitchen is many of them, and they have to meet. The sink base has to meet the dishwasher, the tall unit has to land where the wall allows, and a run that looked right on paper has to reach the corner.
Most of the trouble is at those joins, so that is where to test. Draw something simple, then ask the software to do the awkward thing.
Everything below works best with a kitchen you have already built, because you know what the right answer looks like.
Six things to check
Try these on any tool, including this one.
1. Does the catalog hold what a kitchen is made of?
List what your kitchen needs: base cabinets, a sink base, a bank of drawers, a tall unit for the pantry or the ovens, uppers, something to turn the corner. Then look for each one by name. A catalog that has each of them gives you boxes that start out the right shape.
2. Does the room take part?
Put in two walls, a window and a door, then try to place a cabinet over the window and another in front of the door. Software that knows about the openings tells you at that moment.
3. What happens at the walls and the corners?
Stop a run short of a wall and see what the tool offers for the gap. A good answer is a filler sized to the space, with a little extra on it so you can scribe it to a wall that is not straight. Then add a corner. A blind corner and a diagonal corner are different boxes, and a kitchen catalog is better for having both.
4. Do the sink and the appliances make room for themselves?
Place a sink and look at the cabinet under it, because the sink belongs to that cabinet. Then place a range, a dishwasher and a refrigerator and see how much of the run each one takes.
5. Do your construction choices follow onto every cabinet?
Change one setting for the whole job, such as how the boxes go together, and see whether every cabinet follows. Then open one cabinet and look at its hardware: a hinge, a slide and a pull, each named by product.
6. Do the parts come from the same job?
Ask for the cut list from the kitchen you drew. Then widen one cabinet and ask again. If the list moved by itself, the parts come from the drawing.
How CabDesign answers each one
Each product claim in this section was checked against the shipped product.
| The cabinets | The catalog has base cabinets, drawer bases with three or four drawers, sink bases, uppers, tall cabinets, open shelving, fillers and end panels, and four corner cabinets: a blind and a diagonal corner base, a blind and a diagonal corner upper |
|---|---|
| The room | Walls, windows and doors are part of the plan, and CabDesign tells you when a cabinet would land over a window or in front of a door |
| The gaps | "Fill to wall" adds a filler for the space between the end of a run and the wall, cut slightly oversize so it can be scribed. A corner cabinet seats in the junction of two walls, so the walls come first |
| The fixtures | A sink drops into the top of a base cabinet. Appliances come as a refrigerator, a range, a dishwasher, a wall oven stack, a range hood or a custom appliance |
| Construction and hardware | Construction is set for the job, for a cabinet class or as a named method your shop saves, and every cabinet inherits it. A cabinet can pin a real hinge, slide or pull from the hardware catalog |
| The parts | The Design Outputs page prints a report, prints labels for the cut parts, prints a customer quote once the job is priced, exports CSV and sends the job to the Cut List Optimizer |
The Optimizer lays the parts out on full sheets and on offcuts you have saved (it calls them remnants), either cutting from your remnants first or aiming for the fewest sheets, whichever you pick, with the saw kerf and the edgebanding handled. How to check that arithmetic on your own tooling is the cut list calculator guide.
A scribed filler is the strip that meets a wall that is not straight, and the cabinet scribe page explains what scribing takes off and why.
Layout first, then parts
Working out where everything goes is the first half of the job, and CabDesign gives it three views of one model. The Floor Plan is where the room opens and the runs go down. The Elevation shows the face of a wall, which is where a drawer bank that does not line up with the door beside it becomes obvious. The 3D view shows the whole kitchen together. An island is drawn on the Floor Plan as a freestanding run with no wall behind it.
Standard sizes are a starting point and not a rule. The guide to standard kitchen cabinet dimensions covers the usual heights, depths and widths and what each one is for. Lengths show in the unit you think in: millimetres, centimetres, decimal inches, fractional inches (sixteenths by default), or feet and inches.
In CabDesign the parts come out of the plan you made, so the layout you work out is also the cut list you take to the saw.
What free means here
Both CabDesign and StackDesign are free during the open beta, with no card to enter. The pricing page carries the price and the dates, along with what the plans look like afterwards.
Five smaller tools run with nothing signed in at all: board feet calculator, material cost calculator, the hinge calculator, the Gola profile configurator, and spec photo to cut list. An account keeps your projects, your catalog and your saved methods, so the same job opens on the shop computer and the office one.
Where to start
Pick the page that matches what you came for.
| I want to lay a kitchen out | Open the Designer and put your walls in |
|---|---|
| I want the order to do it in | Design kitchen cabinets online, start to cut list |
| I want the usual sizes | Standard kitchen cabinet dimensions |
| I want to know how the parts get worked out | What a cut list calculator is actually doing |
| I am weighing up more than one tool | Six questions to ask any cabinet design software |
Start with a kitchen you already built. You know where the awkward joins are, which makes it the fastest way to find out whether any of this is true.
Common questions
What should kitchen cabinet design software be able to do?
Six things, and each one is worth testing on a kitchen you already know. It should hold the kinds of cabinet a kitchen is made of, take the walls, windows and doors of the room into the plan, and deal with the gaps at walls and corners. It should place a sink and the appliances, carry your construction and hardware choices onto every cabinet, and give you the cut list, the labels and a quote from the same job you drew.
Can I plan an island and corner cabinets?
Yes. An island is a freestanding run with no wall behind it, drawn on the Floor Plan. Corner cabinets come in four kinds: a blind corner base, a diagonal corner base, a blind corner upper and a diagonal corner upper. A corner cabinet seats in the junction of two walls, so you add the walls first.
Does it give me a cut list for the whole kitchen?
Yes. From the Design Outputs page you can print a report, print labels for the cut parts, print a customer quote once the job is priced, export CSV and send the job to the Cut List Optimizer. The Optimizer lays the parts out on full sheets and on offcuts you have saved, with the saw kerf and the edgebanding handled.
Is there free kitchen cabinet design software?
CabDesign is free during its open beta, with no card, and the cut list is part of the same job you draw. The pricing page carries the price and the dates. Five smaller tools run with nothing signed in at all: the board feet calculator, the material cost calculator, the hinge calculator, the Gola profile configurator, and spec photo to cut list.
What screen does it want?
A computer, or a tablet held wide. A floor plan and an elevation want room to work in, and the Designer is supported from 1280 pixels wide by 720 tall.
Keep reading
A CabDesign page. Every product claim here was checked against the shipped product. Check every measurement against your own tooling and a scrap before you cut. Browse all guides.