Storage Cabinets, Display Cabinets and Glass Cupboards

A cabinet is a box with doors on it, and everything else about it follows from two decisions: whether the doors are solid or glass, and whether the piece stands tall or sits low.

Most of what is here has solid doors, which is the more useful answer for most rooms. The glass ones are the smaller part of the range and do something different: they put things on show rather than away.

Storage cabinets with solid doors

Solid doors suit what a living room actually accumulates. Paperwork, cables, board games, spare bulbs, the things you want within reach and out of sight.

A solid-door cabinet is also the quieter object in a room. A glass front is always slightly busy, because you see through it to whatever is behind. A closed door is a flat surface, so the piece behaves more like a wall and less like a window.

Inside, most are shelved rather than open, which is what separates a cabinet from a cupboard in practice: you are buying shelves with doors on them rather than one tall empty space.

Tall cabinets and cupboards

The tall ones hold the most in the least floor, which is the whole reason they exist. Against a wall with nothing else on it, a tall cabinet does the job of a sideboard and a bookcase together without taking the length that either would.

Two things to weigh. The top shelf of a tall cabinet sits above easy reach, so it becomes long-term storage rather than daily. And a tall cabinet with weight in the upper shelves should be fixed to the wall, the same as a bookcase.

Small two-door cabinets

The small ones are the tall ones without the top: a low, two-door box that fits under a window, beside a sofa, in the gap a sideboard would overshoot, or in a hallway where anything deeper would catch a shoulder.

They also give you a surface, which a tall cabinet does not. In a room that already has enough storage but nowhere to put a lamp, that is often the more useful piece.

Glass display cabinets

A display cabinet is the only piece of storage furniture whose contents are the point of it. Everything else in a house is built to put things away; this is built to put them where they can be seen and still keep the dust off.

That makes it the right answer for a narrow set of things: glassware, china, a collection, pieces that came from somewhere and mean something. It makes it the wrong answer for anything you own a lot of, because a glass cabinet with too much in it reads as clutter behind a window rather than as a display.

Glass also reflects. In a room with a bright window opposite, you will see the window as much as the contents, which is worth thinking about before choosing where it goes.

And a glass cabinet is not really selling you storage, it is selling you a view of your own things. Whether that looks like a display or like a shelf someone forgot to tidy is not something a photograph will tell you. Our Enniskillen showroom has them out with things in them, which settles it in about ten seconds.

Oak, wooden and painted cabinets

Oak is what most people ask for and the finish that goes with the most. Light oak keeps a tall piece from dominating a room; darker and smoked finishes give it weight and suit a cabinet meant to be noticed.

Painted finishes let a large box recede, which matters more on a tall cabinet than on almost anything else, because a full-height piece in a dark colour takes up the room whether or not it is full.

Metal and black cabinets

Metal frames and metal doors bring a harder edge and take knocks better than a veneered carcass. Black and dark finishes turn the cabinet into the anchor of a wall, which works where the walls are pale and looks heavy where they are not.

Cabinet and cupboard FAQs

What is the difference between a storage cabinet and a display cabinet?

The doors. A storage cabinet has solid doors so the contents are hidden; a display cabinet has glass so they can be seen. The carcass and the shelves inside are often identical.

What is the difference between a cabinet and a sideboard?

Proportion. A sideboard is longer than it is tall and sits low along a wall. A cabinet stands tall, or is short enough that it would not read as a sideboard.

Are the cabinets shelved inside?

Most are, which is what makes them cabinets rather than cupboards: shelves behind doors rather than one tall open space. It varies by piece, so check the individual product.

Should a tall cabinet be fixed to the wall?

Yes. Weight in the upper shelves makes any tall cabinet top-heavy, and the doors add leverage when they swing open. It takes one bracket.

What do you put in a display cabinet?

Things that are worth looking at and would otherwise gather dust: glassware, china, collections, pieces with a story. Not volume. A display cabinet works when it is two-thirds full rather than packed.