Sorry to butt in, but you could purchase a face frame from Brian. Use it to build out the face of your closet and put doors on it. I've done this and it's much easier than you'd think. As you've noticed, everything is built to your measurements, so it's not something you'll find online. Face frames are buried on their site and I can never find them. I just ask. (Now I make them myself, though.)

I purchase doors not drilled for hinges because I prefer a more classic, exposed hinge look.

If you're wanting to economize by not taking plywood boxes, consider plywood on the bottom and whatever on the top. Your more heavily used boxes and anything near water, IMHO, should be plywood.

As far as putting them together, there are many threads here extoling the virtues of how easy it is to put these together, tips and tricks, and links to Brian's how-to videos, which are very well done.

Now, back to oldbat2be. One of the kitchens of my heart. :) Then there's littlefishies, but oldbat2be has that great closet.....

Thanks for chiming in, Christine! You're definitely the resident expert on assembling inset Conestoga.

young-gardener - no issues with any of the cabinets we've purchased so far, but I should explain that we haven't purchased an actual inset cabinet from Conestoga (yet). Most recently, for the linen closet, we purchased a face frame with openings for lower drawers and upper doors, and DH built the upper cabinet box and supports for the lower drawer glides. Here's the frame; it went into the corner behind (17" deep).

In retrospect, this was a ton of work (building the upper box; less so surprisingly the drawer glide supports). DH is very exact and was able to make it work.

No problems with functioning of doors/drawers (used the Blum hardware).

Haven't thought to clean the bead! Bead closeup prior to install:

Installed but without upper hardware:

CEFREEMAN has put together many an inset cabinet and has posted good installation tips, so I wouldn't hesitate to try one (but again, I've got a really good assembler). You must be the judge! Getting someone to install them should be a great help.

When spec'ing this, I specified what I thought were door openings (was a tad surprised to find holes upon receipt), but that was OK because I had considered glass as well.

Regarding your linen closet, the folding doors do take less hallway space (just saying). Drawers might be your best option. How deep is the space?

As mentioned above, we did do a box, but had shy of 18 inches, which meant that we would have to use 12" glides, if we used the 15" box. (Hence, the custom route).

No experience with the other line. I am not sure about visible hinges, sorry.

Glad to help, best of luck with (all) the projects:)

My inset cabinets from conestoga are going in now. I couldn't get in to take pictures because they grouted tile on their way out this afternoon, but maybe tomorrow....

Two pros have done about 6 cabinets in one work day, but they spent a lot of time sorting out the parts first.

I put some pictures up on the other Conestoga thread, if you want to check them out. More tonight, when they finish the next set.

Just wanted to suggest that if you are wondering about cleaning the Madison door bead, you can do what I did and order the TW 1038 door with a regular bead around the panel. It's like tiny quarter round, so the dust won't collect under the bead or on the edges of a straight shaker panel.

Here is a picture, if you can see it.

CEFreeman- Thanks for the tip on the face frames. We'll look into that. :) Yes, I'm having a terrible time finding things on their site! What a shame. I, too, prefer the exposed hinges, but I dare say that's above our skill level. ha! Do you give lessons? ;) Problem is, I'd be super picky about things being even, and I'd drive DH absolutely batty. He doesn't have an eye for detail. *ahem* I appreciate all the input! THanks for chiming in!

Barlowmom- How lovely! You must be so excited to see the finished product (I am, and it's not even my house!). I'll head right over and check out the photos. Thank you for the door suggestion and photo. I'm going to show it to DH tonight. It's so hard to pick online. Whew! As for the speed of install...that frightens me a bit, since I"m anything but aprofessional. ;)

OldBat2Be- Hm, yes, building drawers could be an issue unless we hired that part out. Maybe I should consider an all door linen set up (boo) so we don't run into trouble there. For the dining/library, we should be able to get a box in the size we need. Love the glass you picked, by the way. Is this considered one of their "tall cabinets?" Shoot, good point on the folding doors/regular doors/drawer clearances. I hadn't thought of that. I am headed to the house this afternoon and will take some measurements of everything. That hall does feel quite narrow to us. I'm hoping that making the linen closet built in and changing the door opposite it to two narrow french doors will help. We'll see! As for the closet depth, it seems rather shallow to me for a linen closet, but that could be because the one in our last house was about 3 feet deep (and wildly impractical!). Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have a box to fit. HA! Regardless....thanks for all the answers! It really does help me sort things out.