it depends. in our last house i had mullions on the larger glass doors, but not the smaller doors. mullions create a kind of visual rhythm. a change in the size of the divided glass "breaks" the rhythm and can be visually jarring.

this time around i decided to forgo any superfluous details for a cleaner look overall -which is my own personal preference. a 13" cabinet could look too fussy with the addition of mullions, but i'd have to see the rest of the doors. can you post a layout?

This is the range wall. Just the upper stacked cabinets flanking the hood have glass.

And this is the frig wall. We were planning on having glass in the lower upper cabinet between the appliances, but he ordered it wrong. The stacked upper cabinet above that one has glass. I prefer it the way it was planned. We were planning on using those upper stacked cabs for long term storage and would rather have solid doors. We plan on using that counter as a bar area and were going to have glasses in that cabinet and thought is would look nice with glass.

Architectural definitions.

Mullions are the wide trim pieces that separate two window units. Muntins are the small grids that separate panes of actual glass in the window. Most modern windows use faux muntin grids in order to be able to do a single sheet of glass rather than individual panes.

Back to your regularly scheduled post.

The top cabinets are barely in the realm of being appropriate proportions to be stacked, and they definitely cannot do muntins and be appropriate looking. They are too tiny for muntins and do not have enough glass exposed vs the wood grid. You want a minimum of a 15" high cabinet to get muntins, and even that is a bit on the small size. If you wanted muntins the lower cabinets should have been shorter so the so the shorter cabinets could have been taller. You want a ratio around 2/3 to 1/3 for stacked cabinets to look appropriate. Or, 30" cabinets with 15" uppers. Or 36" cabinets with 18" uppers, etc.

These are the windows we are putting in, they are 72 inches wide and gorgeous. With the look of the windows, what would you do with the glass? Really struggling with this.

Hollysprings is correct technically- unfortunately almost every cabinet manufacturer calls them mullions. I don't know if it was the public, KD's, or the mfg who started it. I'd just checked a few catalogs for minimum sizing form muntins :)

That is just at or a smidge below the minimum spec for the two manuafacturers available but both I looked at would only give you a single divider , not a cross. If you are working with a custom maker or brand, that makes their own doors, you may be able to insist upon a cross.
That said...

Looks like you have inset cabinets so- 13" high cabinet, less 1.5" twice for rails, less twice the reveal of 3/32",less twice the door rail (lets say 2 1/4" minimum) less 3/4" for the muntin 13-3-0.1875-4.5-.75 leaving a total of 4.5625 in height for glass, that makes your glass panels 2.28125 each.

Or about equal to the width of my phone.
Held almost 8 feet in the air.

I wouldn't do them, whatever you want to call them. They would e too small to balance your windows adn would probably detract from them. Your cabinets are a different element on a different plane and with a different function than your windows. Don't feel they have to match,

This post was edited by lascatx on Sat, May 25, 13 at 12:23

Your windows look great!! I think you're best with the plain glass uppers, especially with the lovely mullioned detailing inside your main windows. Let them be the focal point and don't diminish them with tinier partitions on the uppers.

I had the same dilemma with my uppers which are 14" frameless and decided to leave them as plain glass since the proportions would have been too small compared to the mullions in the main cabs. Here is what it looks like to give you an idea of the proportions:

I think you should insist on having them replace your beverage area cabinet with a glass and mullioned door the way you'd specified. That will look great and you should definitely get them to fix that. Good luck!

I just found this pic on houzz that looks like it might have roughly similar proportions to yours, tho even still a bit larger as they aren't inset. The upper mullioned cabs look great here:

[Traditional Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2107) by Abbotsford Photographer Revival Arts : Architectural Photography

But it doesn't have a mullioned window competing for its attention. So I think that with your large mullioned window you're best to go with plain glass in your uppers.

Maybe it's just the flat drawing but the elevations look much too busy to me. I would streamline some things if I were going to do the small uppers.

What's the purpose of them? Will they just be lighted? If you want to display things, they won't be visible with the glass panes.

Beautiful kitchens!

i would definitely skip them.

I also think the mullions look busy in your design, especially with the window. Too many grids. Like it better without them.

taggie, your backsplash is gorgeous! The picture from houzz was actually one of my inspiration pictures, that was the look I was going for. After all your responses, I am thinking we should forget them. We are considering opening one of the cabinets to see how it looks, I am so visual, I really have to see it. Thank you to all who have responded, I really appreciate it.

I wonder if your KD was trying to be polite, but was really thinking, those are too busy a look, please please change your mind.

My design is similar. The cabinet maker thought the muntins would be way too busy in that small a window after we mocked it up, so we elected to use seeded glass instead. I saw a set of doors yesterday and it is beautiful.

meyersdvm, I was wondering if a different glass would be a good idea. I am going to search houzz to see what seeded glass would look like. What size are your uppers, are they 13 inch as well? If I did the 13 inch stacked cabinets with seeded glass, would it look ok to have the 36 inch glass cabinet between the wall oven and refrig with plain glass and mullions?

This post was edited by dermnp on Sun, May 26, 13 at 8:32

I have an 18 inch cabinet stacked over a 33 inch with 5 inch crown. Our ceilings are just shy of 9 feet. Here is a photo of the boxes installed. Hopefully the doors will be going in tomorrow.
I am a bit OCD on having things match up, so I personally wouldn't choose to have muntins in a single cabinet. Maybe consider doing the entire 36 inch cabinet in glass? I am too messy to do that, but in other's kitchens when used as a focal point it can look nice to break up the wall of wood. I tend to agree with the previous posters that a 13 inch may be too small. Once you add the door frames, the amount of glass showing will be tiny.

My uppers are on an angled roof. We wanted to get as much height as possible so the cabinets are 9" tall in the back. The 15" deep cabinets are 14" tall in the front with a viewing area of 5 1/2" tall. The 24" deep cabinets are 17" tall in the front with a viewing area of 6 1/2" tall. Your doors are made differently than mine, but you can see that millions/muntins would not work with my cabinets. Maybe you can compare your dimensions with mine.