What are "Fillers" in Kitchen Cabinets

A lady called me this morning inquiring about having a kitchen design done. She asked what a filler piece is when it comes to the kitchen cabinets. She had heard many cabinet companies use them and wasn’t sure what they are. Many, many kitchen cabinet manufacturers have standard boxes sizes they use, like 24”, 30”, 32”. No such thing as 32 5/8”. The reason for that is that they can be built much quicker due to the fact they never have to stop to change the sizes on the cutting equipment. That is good for them, not so good for the client. That means that you will have some and in a number of cases many, of what they call, fillers in your kitchen. What a filler is, is a piece of trim that they put between two cabinets to fill in left over space or space between cabinets. The cabinets do look larger from the outside but when you look inside that cabinet you will see they are not as wide as they appear. Of course this impacts the space available in the cabinet. When you have a true custom kitchen done, there will be no or at least very few fillers. The reason is a custom cabinet maker will make the box size exactly what is needed to fill the space, hence no fillers. If a box size of 30 5/6” is needed that is what they make. It creates a huge difference in what can go into your kitchen cabinet layout. I have designed kitchens where I used 3.5 inches of leftover space, where a filler would have been used, but because I deal with a custom cabinet maker, I was able to put in a slide in spice rack. No wasted space. I really recommend using a custom cabinet maker to do your kitchen; you will be amazed at the difference and the often the price difference is very minimal. But remember a good design is the place to start.