You will have some raw wood to deal with that will need to be stained and finished. Also, you need to assess the strength of your cabinets before your do this. Some cabinets of that size physically need the stile to provide structural support. What is the thickness of your cabinet sides? Back? What type of corner support does the cabinet have? If you do this, you may need to increase the side's thickness and add additional corner bracing.

You mention the door's adjustment issue, but that's not a minor issue. Partial overlay doors with a center stile can rarely be adjusted to butt. Full overlay doors can usually adjust to butt, but it leaves the clearances around the doors off in the line of cabinets to adjust the hinges like that. One solution would be to use the removed stile as a dust strip (T astragal) attached to one of the door's back to conceal the gap.

Thank you LWO! The gap between the doors is 1/8 inch, and if they could not be adjusted correctly we would use the stile in the back as you suggested. As far as construction, the sides are 3/8 inch engineered wood with 1/8 inch engineered wood back, Kraftmaid cabinets, and they said that the cabinets are constructed the same with or without stiles, that the stiles are just added to the constructed box.

I've done that. Given the width, though, whether or not you think it's structural, I'd sit myself in the cabinet and reinforce the face frame in the center with long, 4-screw mending plates. The last thing you want is a sag because the floors of the cabinet are not wood. (engineered wood?!?) The stile is probably in place with pocket screws and glue, so you'll have a raw space to sand down. On the bottom with your pull-outs it shouldn't matter.

I've done this with more than a few cabinets, but they've been uppers. If it were more than 24" wide, I reinforce just in case. If they're short cabinets, though, I don't bother.

Come to think of it, if you're taking out the stile and adding pull-outs, why don't you just install drawers? It's far more functional (and easier) than pull-outs with drawers in the way. You could take a look at your drawer fronts sideways to see if they'd work as drawer fronts. Since they're Kraftmaid, if they don't, drawer fronts are available.

Sorry to hi-jack...

CEFreeman: can you give more info on removing stiles from uppers? I have a number of upper and lower cabs with center stiles that make access more narrow than I like. I have thought about simply cutting the stiles out - is it "safer" to do so in uppers? Do they not act as some sort of stabilizer to keep cab bottoms level?

I was just thinking about converting my lowers to drawers too...

A quick search online and I found the site linked below that has video demos. Click into comments for the name of the source of the parts. I'm inspired - I may be able to salvage my kitchen after all!

Here is a link that might be useful: Video demos of drawer project

Abbycat, the stiles offer frame support, ostensibly to keep them from racking. Depending upon the size of the cabinet, they can also be a place to put a shelf pin to hold longer shelves. Sometimes they're just there because the cabinet doors are standard overlay (face frame showing around the cabinets) and they block the space between the doors.

All I did was lay my cabinet on its back, take out the pocket screws (you'll need a square bit) then cut it out with my circular saw. Done.

Since I'm painting, sanding that cut out part smooth wasn't an issue. If you're staining, I'd sand that whole inside edge of the cabinet to have the stain match.

For lowers, you can either install rails (cross pieces) to hold drawer glides, or not. I actually cut out some rails in my bathroom (same procedure) to put in a drawer that was deeper than 3". 3" is stupidly useless. I use Blum full-extension, soft-close glides, which you can screw into the side of the cabinet. AH Turf.com sells all the glides and their parts for the lowest price I've found online.

Easy. Actually, this is one of the easier things to do. The hardest part was making, finding, and/or buying the doors and drawer fronts.

fishymom:

Lay a scrap of v32 plastic laminate on the cabinet bottom after checking for and removing any pocket screws. Using the crosscut side of the blade, lay a Japanese pull saw on the plastic laminate and saw off the stile, pressing the blade into the laminate. The plastic laminate keeps you from scratching the cabinet bottom and the thinness of the laminate and saw blade keep the saw kerf to a minimum. This would allow the stile to be reinstalled to the back of a door astragal style.

Forget about compromising the cabinet strength; it's only a 33".

Here is a link that might be useful: Saw

Trebruchet, thank you so much for the detailed directions! It was so kind of you to take the time to do that, I really appreciate it. We will be tackling this project first thing tomorrow, looking forward to getting some space out of that cabinet! I only have 6 base cabinets and a pantry. With the sink, corner blind pantry and microwave drawer base being so specific, it only leaves me with 3 for open use. The 30" drawer base has my utensils, dishes and baking items, the 15" has my small pots and pans, so I really need the real estate from this 33" base. Thanks again, you have been very helpful!

Hello. I have been planning on adding rollout shelves in my cabinet under the countertop. It does have a center stile that is 2.5" wide and just 3/4 (0.75) inch thickness. What I'm only worried about is that there seems to be a splinter like thing (maybe a nail?) wedged between the back of the center of the stile and the center of the top shelf. The cabinet is 36 inches wide wall to wall but has 30-inch opening for installing the pullout shelves. I am a carpentry noob but I'm really "inspired " to do this project after watching lots of videos. I hope it shouldn't be a problem removing the stile (and maybe just knock off the stile from the inside after sawing off the top and bottom to disengage whatever that is nailed between the center of the shelf and the stile from the inside )? I'm posting a close up shot of the "obstruction" from the inside of the cabinet where the center of stile and the center of the top shelf meet.

This post was edited by dublin_rookie on Mon, Mar 17, 14 at 2:24

Sorry forgot to post pictures - here is the cabinet - it is part of an L-shaped configuration. I put an 'O' around the stile which I plan to saw off.

We removed the stiles on the cabinets on each side of our range but converted the cabinets to drawers. This eliminated concern over the shelf sagging when the stile helping to support it was removed. The cabinetmaker added a horizontal rail to fill in between the drawer fronts. We were having the cabinets refinished and new doors and drawer fronts put on, so the finish was not an issue. The drawer fronts on the cabinet pictured are 42" wide.

My husband had no problem removing the stile. Ours was screwed in place, top and bottom, with the thin screws used to screw the cabinets to each other. Once those were removed, it was an easy fix. AnnaC54, I would love to convert that base cabinet to drawers, but my husband is not convinced, yet!

Awesome kitchen makeover, Anna! However I currently intent on just doing slide out shelves.

Fishymon, you mentioned at the top of the post that you have a 33 in cabinet. Is it the cabinet opening width? Mine is 36 inches from left to right edges but the cabinet opening itself is just 30.5 inches. Did u have to reinforce the back of the face frame of your cabinet to compensate for the removal of the stiles?

I am scheduled to have this done to my cabinetry. Using Shelf Confidence from San Antonio. I'll post afterwards with results & pictures. Little nervous but excited to have a more functioning kitchen.