Kitchen Cabinets - Free Plans PDF & Cut List

Free kitchen cabinet plans for a typical 10-foot run of frameless (Euro-style) base cabinets - five 600 mm-wide boxes (3 m, just under 10 feet), all with the same 720 mm-tall side panels, doors hung on 35 mm cup hinges. You get the parts list, dimensions, material breakdown, and an optimized cutting diagram you can download as a PDF and take to the workshop.

Each box is the same carcass as our single base cabinet plan: a bottom, two 100 mm stretchers up top for the countertop, a back panel, an adjustable mid-shelf, two doors with about a 3 mm reveal for hinge adjustment, and a clip-on toe kick over adjustable legs. On 100 mm legs with a 38 mm top, the counter lands at about 858 mm; set the legs to about 155 mm (and cut the kicks 155 mm tall) for the US-standard 36" (915 mm) height.

Cut list for kitchen cabinets

The full cut list for kitchen cabinets in this build is 50 parts across 7 part types: 10 side panels, 5 bottoms, 10 stretchers, 5 adjustable shelves, 5 back panels, 10 doors, and 5 toe kicks. Every dimension is in mm so you can move directly from cut list to saw fence without converting.

If you want to know how to make a cut list for cabinets without our template, the steps are: list every part once, group by sheet thickness, mark grain orientation if veneer is showing, then add kerf to your stock total. Skipping kerf is the most common reason a cut list is one sheet short. The optimizer below does all of that automatically when you click "Open in Optimizer" - it returns a cut list for kitchen cabinets that packs into 5 sheets of 4'×8' plywood, with the exact arrangement printed on a PDF you can take to the table saw.

Building one unit instead of a whole run? There are dedicated base cabinet plans (one of the five boxes in this run, as a single build) and wall cabinet plans (a single upper that cuts from one sheet).

Tools you'll need

Nothing exotic. Realistic shop list:

• Table saw or track saw (track saw is friendlier for full-sheet plywood)
• Drill driver and a couple of bits, plus a 35 mm Forstner bit for hinge cups
• Pocket-hole jig (Kreg or similar) - the fastest way to assemble Euro cabinets
• Clamps - more than you think you need, particularly long parallel clamps
• Edge banding iron and a trimmer bit if you want clean exposed edges

You can build the whole run with a circular saw + a straight edge if that's what you have. A track saw just makes life easier, especially when ripping 1.2 m-wide plywood.

Time estimate

Rough numbers for a first-time builder: half a day to cut and edge-band, a full day to assemble the carcasses, half a day to hang doors and adjust. So two long shop days plus finishing time. Experienced cabinet builders finish a 10-foot run in one long day.

Build sequence

The order matters more than people think.

1. Cut the side panels first. They're the most visible part and the dimension everything else references. Any minor variation in your saw setup affects just one part type, not the whole job.

2. Cut bottoms and stretchers, then shelves, then backs and toe kicks. The backs are the only part that hides minor errors, so they can wait until last.

3. Edge-band before assembly. Iron-on banding goes on raw edges that will show after assembly - usually the front edges of side panels, the front edge of the bottom, and the visible edge of the shelves. Trim flush with a router or a hand trimmer. Doing this first makes assembly much faster.

4. Drill shelf-pin holes using a jig (Kreg shelf-pin jig is cheap and pays for itself by the third cabinet). Holes along the full height are overkill - three shelf positions are enough.

5. Drill hinge-cup holes in the doors with a 35 mm Forstner bit. Set depth before drilling. Centerline of the cup is 22 mm from the door edge for a standard frameless setup.

6. Assemble carcasses with pocket screws and glue - bottom between the sides, stretchers at the top front and back. Square each box with a 90-degree clamp before locking it down - if the box racks during assembly, the door won't sit flush.

7. Hang doors and adjust using the hinges' three-way adjustment. This is the one step that makes the whole run look professional or amateurish, so don't rush.

Frameless vs face-frame - why these are frameless

Two cabinet styles dominate American kitchens. Face-frame cabinets (the traditional style) have a 1.5"-wide hardwood frame on the front of every box, with doors mounted to the frame. Frameless (Euro-style) skips the frame and mounts doors directly to the cabinet sides.

Frameless gives you slightly more usable interior space, simpler construction (no frame to build and align), and a more modern look. Face-frame is more forgiving of imperfect cuts because the frame hides them. We chose frameless because the cut list is shorter, the build is faster, and you don't need a stack of hardwood for the frames.

Material options

The template cuts every part, backs included, from 18 mm cabinet-grade plywood. Drop-in alternatives:

• Melamine (white or wood-grain) - cheaper, pre-finished, no edge-banding needed if you can live with the particleboard core showing on the edges. Use the melamine cut calculator, and if you do band, subtract the banding thickness (about 0.5 mm) from each banded edge.
• MDF with veneer or paint - smoother surface for painted cabinets. Heavier, needs sealed edges to prevent moisture absorption. The MDF calculator handles this.
• Particleboard with melamine face - the IKEA route. Cheap, works fine for budget builds, holds up if you don't soak it. Shorter lifespan than plywood.

For backs, 6 mm plywood or 3 mm hardboard is plenty - they're structural in the sense that they keep the cabinet square, but no weight rests on them. If you go thinner, take the back panels out of the parts list and cut them separately: all five 720 × 564 mm backs fit on one 4'×8' sheet of thin stock, and the 18 mm parts drop to 4 sheets.

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