Glossary

Kitchen terms explained

Plain-English definitions of the kitchen-industry terms you’ll meet while designing your Deelux kitchen.

Shaker door

A five-piece kitchen door with a simple square frame around a flat centre panel. Originated with the 18th-century Shaker religious community and still the UK’s most popular traditional door style.

Handleless

A kitchen with no visible handles. Doors open via an integrated J-pull profile at the top edge or via a true-handleless recessed channel that sits behind the door.

In-frame

A kitchen where each door is set inside a visible timber frame attached to the cabinet, rather than mounted on the cabinet face. The most craft-intensive cabinet construction and the defining look of heritage English kitchens.

Carcass

The structural box of a kitchen cabinet — the sides, top, bottom and back that the door and drawers fix to. Standard Deelux carcasses are 18 mm furniture-grade board, manufactured pre-assembled in our Winsford factory.

Plinth

The recessed horizontal board that runs along the bottom of floor-level kitchen cabinets, covering the legs. Also called the kickboard.

Pelmet

A horizontal strip fitted to the underside of wall cabinets, typically used to conceal under-cabinet LED lighting.

Cornice

A decorative moulding fitted on top of wall cabinets in traditional and Shaker kitchens. Cornice plus pelmet creates the classic framed, furniture-like look.

Dovetail drawer

A drawer box joined by interlocking trapezoid cuts at the corners rather than staples or dowels. Stronger, longer-lasting, and standard on higher-specification Deelux ranges.

Soft-close

A hinge or drawer-runner mechanism that pulls the door or drawer the last few millimetres closed slowly and silently. Standard across every Deelux range.

Quartz worktop

An engineered stone worktop of roughly 90% ground quartz bound with resin and pigment. Non-porous, stain-resistant, heat-tolerant to around 150 °C, and the most popular mid-to-premium worktop in UK kitchens.

Granite worktop

A natural stone worktop cut from a single slab. Each piece is unique, extremely durable, and heat-resistant, but requires periodic resealing because the surface is slightly porous.

Dekton worktop

An ultra-compact sintered stone worktop. Thinner and lighter than quartz, near-impervious to heat, UV and scratching — often specified for worktops that meet outdoor kitchens or run under windows.

Upstand

A short vertical strip of worktop material (typically 100 mm tall) fixed to the wall where the worktop meets it. A cleaner, lower-maintenance alternative to a full tiled splashback.

Splashback

A full-height protective panel behind a hob or sink, in tile, glass, stainless steel or stone. Protects the wall from splashes and heat.

New to all this? Read our buying guide for a fitted kitchen in Cheshire →