Glass and Mullion Cabinet Doors

The material section of ANSI/AWI 0641-2019 requires that glass used in conjunction with casework, doors or lites comply with ANSI Z97.1, the safety glazing standard, in its latest edition. That is the whole of its requirement on the glass itself: it does not specify a thickness or a tempering process for cabinet doors, and we do not invent figures the document does not give. We specify the glass to Z97.1 and choose its thickness for the size of the lite and the hinge, and our journal piece on glass and mirror applications covers the seeded, reeded, fluted, frosted and low-iron options that sit within that rule.

The aesthetic section is detailed about how the glass is held. Glazing stops must be continuous, removable and on the interior only. Under an opaque or laminate finish the stops are synthetic or solid stock, colour-compatible with the interior; under a transparent finish they must be species-compatible with the adjacent surfaces. Glass clips in place of continuous stops are not permitted at Premium grade. Silicone or glazing putty as a stop is not permitted at Premium or Custom grade and is permitted only at Economy. Where the rabbet that receives the glass is exposed, it must be painted or stained to match the interior at Premium and Custom.

Two further figures matter at the drawing stage. The standard requires a minimum clearance of 9.5 millimetres between hardware machining and the glass cut-out, which is why a hinge cup cannot sit as close to the edge of a glazed door as on a panelled one, and why a narrow stile on a glass door is a specification problem rather than a proportion choice. For frameless glass doors it requires flat polished edges at Premium and Custom grade and flat ground edges at Economy. The maximum cabinet door size of 610 by 2,134 millimetres applies to glazed doors as to all others, and a tall glazed door is a weight problem long before that limit.

Behind a panelled door the cabinet interior is a semi-exposed surface, and most shops finish it in plain melamine or a clear coat on maple. Behind glass it is seen from the room, and our door styles hub puts the rule plainly: the inside of the cabinet is finished to match the exterior. The standard’s nearest provision supports that reading, treating casework behind presentation panels as an exposed surface at Premium and Custom grade. In practice a glass-fronted cabinet gets a finished back panel, shelves in the exterior species or colour, shelf edges banded or solid to match, and a finished underside to the top.

Shelves are the detail most often got wrong. A glass-fronted upper usually wants glass shelves so that light from above reaches the lower shelves and the display reads as one lit volume; the standard requires that glass shelf type, thickness, colour and edge treatment be specified, and we put them on the drawing rather than leaving them to the installer. Where wood shelves are used they should be adjustable on inconspicuous supports, with front edges finished as carefully as the door frame, because at eye level the shelf edge is the most prominent horizontal line in the cabinet.

The honest test is what will be behind the glass. A cabinet that holds the everyday dinnerware, glassware stacked by size or a collection that is actually used can take glass and will look better for it. A cabinet that holds the cereal boxes and the small appliances should not, because a glass door turns storage into display whether or not the contents deserve it. In most kitchens that means one or two glass uppers — flanking a range hood, at the end of a run, in a butler’s pantry — rather than a whole elevation.

In pre-war houses glass belongs in the hutch and the pantry. The glazed upper of a Craftsman buffet, the china cabinet of a Colonial Revival dining room and the glass-fronted pantry of an Edwardian flat were all true divided lites in a face frame, and a new kitchen in those houses looks as though it belongs when its glass uppers borrow the lite pattern from the windows and the original built-ins. Our Victorian and Edwardian and Craftsman bungalow guides cover those houses; the Granite Bay and Hillsborough estate houses take the same divided lites in formal stained work.

In mid-century and contemporary houses glass belongs as a single pane or a frameless sheet beside slab doors — one lit display cabinet in a run of walnut, a frameless glass bar cabinet, a reeded-glass pantry door — and never as a divided lite, which reads as a period detail the house never had. Our mid-century and Eichler kitchens guide covers those houses. In the postwar subdivisions of Placer, Sacramento and El Dorado counties a single pane in a shaker frame, overlay, is the natural choice, and a pair either side of the hood is usually enough. Every one of these doors is built, glazed and finished in our Rocklin workshop and installed by our own crews, as our custom kitchens page describes.