One thing I can think of is for any crown to be pulled out and flush with the doors, not flush with the frame.

If you are willing to lose a lot of space, you can use fillers and "build in" the full overlay cabinets to look inset, but there isn't much point in my book. You'll be buying extra material plus paying the installer a lot of extra labor and you might as well have put that money into buying the inset that you love in the first place.

live_wire - you are right, not much point in loosing the space to the faux inset.

local eater - I haven't focused on how the crown is installed before. I'll look out for this.

Thanks

I guess it depends on your definition of 'built-in'.

In my full overlay kitchen, the uppers don't have a separate light rail molding applied after the fact. Instead, my cab maker makes the bottom part of the cab box deeper than the inside cavity so there is room under the cab to hide the UC lights.

I have end panels on the upper cab ends, peninsula end, and on three sides of the island. The base cab ends extend to the floor instead of showing a toe kick. I do have a toe kick on the working side of the island.

Does that help?

breezy - when you open your uppers the bottom shelf then is above what would be the rail? So in essence the cab door is built longer to cover the rail?

I did the opposite of Breezy. I wanted a chunky light rail, which was added to the bottom of the cabs. Claire and Phil's kitchen on 'Modern Family' has an extra chunky one and I liked the look.

The Dunphy's kitchen:

Sometimes people equate a more ornate furniture style to be more built-in looking. YMMV.

Essentially, the bottom shelf of my uppers (only two sets) is both the shelf and the rail. The cab door is built longer to cover the rail. If you look hard, you can see more the construction better on the open shelving in the right corner upper. The doored cabs in that set looks just like that, except with a door over it. See how the bottom rail/shelf is thicker than the shelves? Maybe if you click on the pic, you can enlarge it in my photobucket. Not sure.

mayflower - that is unique, I haven't seen that chunky rail. It looks great .

Breezy - maybe what I am picking up is a sense that results from a kitchen having more details that make the cabinets look more 'finished' so maybe I'm just struggling a bit on what details to focus on to achieve that same sense?

Oh, I see. I think end panels and crown are the two biggest elements that make a kitchen look finished.