Question about 20+ year old kitchen cabinet construction?

[Freddie]

I had a question with anyone familiar about older techniques for cabinet making. My dad and I were changing a dishwasher in my bosses house. It is over a million dollar house on the bay, beautiful view and great property at the end of a keyway. I couldn't help but notice the god awful giant screw plugs on the face frames of his kitchen cabinets. The bead has been routed on after the frame assembly based on the rounded inside corner. I was just wondering if kitchens could have been made this way circa 20 years ago?

[wtnhighlander]

Ugh. The plugs aren't even grain-oriented to the frames. I guess work like that can happen anywhere, anytime. It often falls to a general carpenter to construct 'built-in' cabinets. Obviously, his guy was probably more comfortable nailing up crown moldings than building cabinets. Then again, maybe he was a first-timer.

[Dave H]

I think the cabinet were made with re-purposed material and the dowels where simple dutchmen to cover where the old nail holes existed. The reason I think this is the fact that in the second picture there is a dowel in the machined quasi bead, what structure could someone be doweling into? The dowels are there simply to cover all the sins from the woods sorted past.

[Freddie]

Interesting responses so far guys!

[wdwerker]

How about it was supposed to be paint grade and the client changed his mind !

I had a client order paint grade maple cabinets, unfinished so they could paint and save $ , then they saw how nice the maple looked and wanted to stain and varnish it. Promptly started to gripe about the darker boards and mismatched grain !

I will agree whoever did it wasn't very experienced.

[Jerry_in_SD]

Wow! I would expect inset doors to be a better fit on high end cabinets. But maybe the whole house settled in those 20 years. Even that, I would think the lower left of the door to contact the FF with a fit like that.

[Freddie]

Wow! I would expect inset doors to be a better fit on high end cabinets. But maybe the whole house settled in those 20 years. Even that, I would think the lower left of the door to contact the FF with a fit like that.

My dad first said it probably sagged, but I showed hime that the remaining 3 sides had a pretty even reveal. I wonder if it had stuck at one time, and somebody tried to shave it to fit better and accidentally hacked too much off.