I read in my Building Kitchen Cabinets book that the face frame should
be aligned so that it's flush with the inside bottom of the case.
However looking around Home Expo all their cabinets have about a 1/4"
lip between the face frame and the cabinet bottom (and it's like that
in our current cabinets). Thoughts ?

I recently built a whole house full of cabinets, using 3/4" birch ply and
common #2 pine lumber. They aren't "fine craftsman" quality, but they're
certainly nicer than anything we saw at the home centers (and a lot less
expensive).

I made the face frames by ripping 1x6 and 1x8 pine boards into 2" strips. I
then cut selectively between the knots to end up with mostly clear lumber
for the face frames. I cut the frames to size and assembled them with
pocket screws.

I made my face frames the same height as the cabinet sides, and the cabinet
bottom is flush with the top of the lower rail of the face frame. Despite
my best efforts, I didn't always achieve "perfectly" flush joints between
the cabinet and face frame. But, a few minutes with a palm sander resulted
in perfectly smooth joints. Much easier to clean the shelves than if the
face frame stuck up a bit.

One advantage to having the face frame hang below the cabinet bottom is the
ability to mount undercabinet lights on the bottom of the cabinet.

I didn't do any fancy joinery with my cabinets. The carcass is simply glued
and nailed together with an air nailer. I also glued and nailed the face
frames on. The glue provides the strength, the nails just hold everything
together till the glue drys. Yes, we had nail holes to set, fill, and sand,
but that was a minor issue and just adds to the character of our cabinets.

The carcasses were made of the 3/4" birch plywood, except where the sides
of the cabinet shows. For those I glued up pine boards into panels that
would match the cabinet doors and fronts.

I finished the cabinets with Minwax "preconditioner", followed by a coat of
Minwax "Windsor Oak" stain, and two coats of Olympic Oil Based Satin
Polyurethane.

We were aiming for a "rustic" look and are very pleased with the results. I
tried to leave a select number of tight knots in the pine panels and
whatnot which further enhanced the rustic appearance.

The only item I wished I had done differently was to stain the door panels
before assembling the doors. We built the doors first, then sanded,
stained, and finished them. However, a few weeks after moving into our
house, the heat and dryness from our woodstove allowed the door panels to
shrink away from the door frames. So, there are small unfinished lines
running along the insides of the door frames. No biggy, but it wreaks of
inexperience... Live and learn...

By the way, my favorite book on cabinet building is "Building Kitchen
Cabinets" by Udo Schmidt. It's part of Taunton's "Build Like A Pro" book
series. I learned a lot from that book...

Take care,

Anthony