New 2026 · Terracotta Clay · Face-Frame Shaker · Matt Lacquer

Terracotta Clay Face-Frame Shaker Kitchen — 2.25-Inch Doors on a Full-Overlay Face Frame

Terracotta arrived in US kitchens the way warm oak did three years ago: first in a photograph, then in a showroom, then in a dealer's opening order. What most of the imported versions get wrong is the construction underneath the colour. A terracotta door on a frameless European box is a coloured slab in a room that was designed around framed cabinetry — the reveal lines are wrong, the doors sit proud of the openings instead of inside a frame, and the whole run reads as a flat-pack kitchen that has been painted. This run is built the other way round. It starts with a 1.5 in solid hardwood face frame, the structure a US cabinet installer expects to find, and hangs 2.25 in shaker doors on it full-overlay with a 3 mm shadow gap. The colour is a muted clay terracotta at 5 to 8 gloss units — a warm red-brown that shifts toward rust under 2700K light and toward pink under daylight, which is exactly why the sample has to be approved in the room rather than on a screen. Boxes are 18 mm plywood, the worktop is 30 mm quartz on a 40 mm square edge, and the whole programme ships flat-packed for US dealers or assembled for project work, from 20 pieces per model.

1.5 in solid hardwood face frame around every opening — the US construction standard, and the reason this kitchen can sit next to framed cabinetry from a domestic manufacturer without the reveal lines giving it away as an import
19 mm shaker doors and drawer fronts with 2.25 in flat rails and stiles around a recessed flat centre panel, full-overlay on the face frame with a 3 mm even shadow gap — not inset, because inset doubles the fitting tolerance and adds roughly 15 percent to the door cost for a detail most US retail programmes do not pay for
Terracotta clay matt lacquer at 5 to 8 gloss units over a two-coat polyurethane system — a muted red-brown matched to RAL 3012 or NCS S 4030-Y70R, or to a supplied sample, with a sprayed 200 x 300 mm panel approved before production because terracotta is one of the colours that reads differently at every light angle
18 mm plywood carcass with a 19 mm hardwood face frame dowelled and glued to the box, 8 mm back panel and 32 mm system drilling — plywood rather than chipboard because a face frame puts the hinge load into the frame and the frame has to stay flat for the overlay to hold its gap line
30 mm quartz worktop in white with a fine light speckle, 40 mm flat square edge and a 100 mm matching upstand cut from the same slab; 20 mm quartz, 38 mm laminate or 12 mm sintered stone on the same boxes as alternatives
100 mm recessed toe kick set back 60 mm in the same terracotta, with a clip-on front so the void stays accessible for a water line or a levelling foot after the run is closed
Blum clip-on concealed hinges with three-way adjustment, Blum TandemBox or Legrabox soft-close drawers rated 30 to 70 kg, or a cost-equivalent Chinese set on the same 32 mm drilling; slim brushed-nickel bar pulls at 128 mm centres, horizontal on drawers and vertical near the opening edge on doors
Full internal fit-out on the same box: one adjustable shelf per wall unit, a 300 mm pull-out waste under the sink, cutlery inserts, and a corner carousel where the run turns — all specified as inserts rather than as a different cabinet
Flat-packed RTA for dealer stock or assembled for project delivery: face frames pre-fitted and dowel-drilled, doors and drawer fronts in a separate face-board crate in door-number order so a fitter opens one crate per room instead of sorting a mixed pallet

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SKU: FAME-KC-TFF · MOQ: 20 pcs · Sample order available

Specifications

Programme scope	Full kitchen run on a face-frame programme — base units, wall units, tall units and a recessed plinth on one door, frame and colour; widths in 75 mm increments from 300 to 1200 mm, with the same 3 mm overlay gap across the range; supplied flat-packed or assembled.
Construction	19 mm solid hardwood face frame, 1.5 in stiles and rails, dowelled and glued to an 18 mm plywood box with a 19 mm top and bottom rail; frameless European boxes available on the same doors where a project has already been specified that way, but the two cannot be mixed in one run because the overlay arithmetic is different.
Fronts	19 mm MDF shaker doors and drawer fronts, 2.25 in flat rails and stiles, recessed flat centre panel with a 6 mm step; full-overlay on the face frame with a 3 mm even shadow gap; 19 mm solid oak or ash shaker fronts available on the same frame for a two-tone run; slab and slim-shaker fronts on request.
Finish	Terracotta clay matt lacquer at 5 to 8 gloss units, two-coat polyurethane over a pigmented primer, spray-applied and oven-cured; matched to RAL 3012, NCS S 4030-Y70R or a supplied sample; tested to a 200-revolution Taber abrasion and a 72-hour 40 degree C / 90 percent RH humidity cycle without gloss shift or edge lift.
Carcass	18 mm plywood boxes with sealed ABS edges, 8 mm back panel, 32 mm system drilling and a 19 mm hardwood face frame; 18 mm E1 chipboard available as a cost-down where the run is dry and inland; adjustable legs at 100 to 150 mm behind a clip-on toe kick at 100 mm recess and 60 mm setback.
Worktop	30 mm quartz in white with a fine light speckle, 40 mm flat square edge and a 100 mm matching upstand from the same slab; 20 mm quartz, 38 mm laminate or 12 mm sintered stone on the same boxes; sink and hob cut-outs templated from the project drawing, with the sink centre line set to the 900 mm sink base.
Hardware	Blum clip-on concealed hinges with three-way adjustment and Blum TandemBox or Legrabox soft-close drawers as the specified option, or a cost-equivalent Chinese runner set on the same 32 mm drilling; drawer loads 30 to 70 kg depending on the box; 128 mm slim brushed-nickel bar pulls, with a 30 mm knob option on the same drilling.
Internal fit-out	One adjustable shelf per wall unit on a 32 mm system, cutlery inserts, a 300 mm pull-out waste under the sink, a corner carousel and a tall larder pull-out available as inserts on the same box; appliance and sink bases supplied open with a service void and ventilation cut-outs to the appliance drawing.
Installation	Dowel-and-cam assembly with pre-drilled face frames and confirmat fixings at the frame joints; a 3 m run assembles in roughly 4 to 5 hours with two fitters, about an hour more than a frameless box because the frames have to be pulled together and checked for a straight reveal line before the doors go on; wall units hang on a steel rail supplied per run; an English-language assembly drawing and a parts list by unit code ship with every order.
Packaging	Boxes flat in 5-layer cartons with foam corner blocks — a 600 mm base box ships at roughly 70 x 52 x 17 cm and 34 kg gross; face frames bundled per unit and banded to the matching carton; doors and drawer fronts in a separate rigid face-board crate in door-number order; a 10 m run lands at approximately 5.2 cbm flat-packed, against 4.5 cbm for the same run frameless.
MOQ and lead time	20 pcs per model; colours, widths, two door styles and a two-tone split may be mixed inside the 20; colour approval 10 to 15 days where a RAL or NCS match is required, sample door 7 to 10 days, production 30 to 35 days, FOB Ningbo or CIF to Los Angeles, Long Beach, New Jersey or Savannah.
Compliance	ISO9001, CE, SGS and FSA factory certifications; E1 low-emission board and low-VOC lacquer; CARB Phase 2 compliant plywood and MDF for US import, with a batch formaldehyde declaration on request; FSC-certified plywood and oak available; IP44 lighting option where LED strip is specified into a wall unit.

In a Real Kitchen

Every FAME kitchen program is produced in our 20,000 m² factory, inspected against the same standards we ship to the world's top-10 bathroom brands, and container-optimized for your program.

Product FAQ

Face frame or frameless — which one should a US programme buy?

It depends on what the kitchen sits next to, not on which is better. A face frame puts a 1.5 in hardwood border around every opening, the doors overlay it, and the result matches the framed cabinetry that US dealers and remodelers have installed for decades — the reveal lines run with the room and the run reads as built-in furniture. A frameless box gives more usable internal width for the same external size, roughly 40 mm per unit, and it is cheaper to make and faster to assemble, which is why European and Australian programmes specify it. What does not work is mixing the two in one kitchen: the overlay arithmetic is different, the gap lines do not line up, and any filler that bridges them is visible. This programme is face-frame because the terracotta colour is being sold into US retail and remodel, where the frame is the expectation.

How do you hold a terracotta colour across repeat orders?

By treating the colour as a batch, not as a code. A 5 to 8 gloss unit matt in a warm red-brown shifts toward rust under 2700K light and toward pink under a north-facing daylight window, so a panel that looks correct in a factory inspection bay can look wrong in the room — which is why the approval sample is sprayed from the production formulation and signed off in the space, not on a screen. A custom match gets one batch number and one spray run at 50 pieces or more, and we hold the formulation and a reference panel for 24 months so a second phase six months later can be matched to the panel rather than to a number. Standard stock terracotta is held to a tighter tolerance because it is sprayed in longer runs.

Full-overlay or inset doors?

Full-overlay, for cost and for tolerance. An inset door sits inside the opening and needs a consistent 2 to 3 mm gap on all four sides, which means every box has to be square to within a millimetre and every door has to be sized to its own opening — it roughly adds 15 percent to the door cost and it makes site adjustment much less forgiving, because a hinge cannot close a gap that has been cut. Full-overlay hides the frame edge under the door and the only line the eye reads is the 3 mm shadow gap between fronts, which is exactly what a shaker door in a strong colour needs. Inset is available on the same frame where a project specifically calls for it, but it is quoted as a separate programme rather than as an option on this one.

Why flat-pack for US dealers instead of assembled containers?

Because dealer stock is sold by the box, not by the kitchen. Flat-packed, a 10 m run is about 5.2 cbm and a 40 ft container carries several runs plus worktops, so a dealer can hold four or five colours without renting a warehouse; assembled, the same run takes more than twice the volume and cannot be topped up in small quantities, which kills the mid-tier dealer who wants to add one colour. The trade-off is assembly time on site — about an hour more per run than a frameless box because the face frames have to be pulled together and checked before the doors go on — and that hour is what a dealer's installer charges for. Assembled delivery stays available for project work where the fitter is not the dealer's own crew.

How does a 20-piece order work across widths and colours?

The face frame, the door programme, the 32 mm drilling and the overlay gap are identical across widths, so a 20-piece lot can mix 300 mm to 1200 mm units freely, and can mix two door styles or a two-tone split — terracotta bases with oak uppers, for example — without a second set-up. A custom RAL or NCS colour starts at 50 pieces in one colour, because a colour change means a spray run and a booth clean. Sample door 7 to 10 days, colour approval 10 to 15 days, production 30 to 35 days, FOB Ningbo or CIF to Los Angeles, Long Beach, New Jersey or Savannah.