DIY Cabinet Doors
by Michelle Considine
If you want to replace a cabinet door or two, you might luck into high-quality cabinet doors that suit your needs at Resource Central. If building doors from scratch is the direction you want to go, you have the option of learning some serious carpentry skills or relying on creativity. The latter is my tendency!
This blog looks at a simple cabinet door design that requires not so much in the way of skill or tools. I recommend a power drill/screwdriver, a miter saw, and a speed square for the construction portion of this project. If staining, painting or such is part of your plan, of course, you’ll need the appropriate supplies for that.
The Common Thread
These doors are made of two vertical pieces of wood with 2 or more horizontal pieces attached from the back. If you don’t happen to luck into viable hinges at Resource Central, the hinges shown in many of these doors are available at all major hardware stores. It’s certainly worth looking at Resource Central first for the wood and the hinges as well as the knobs.
Find the design diagrams below and beside this text.
Kitchen Cabinet Doors
In our kitchen, we kept the original 1963 cabinets and doors. I painted the cabinets inside and out. I need to do a little touch up paint as I last painted them 10 years ago but the cabinets are still sturdy and we like that they are solid wood. We have moved some stuff around in our kitchen, including some upper cabinets that used to be hovering 14 inches above the kitchen island. I guess it was designed to be a pass through; it certainly wasn’t social! This shuffling resulted in the need to build one extra lower cabinet. We decided to build shallow cabinets along the back of the island as well.
Armoire Doors with Fabric
A slight variation on the theme is to use fabric to fill much of the space on the doors. The photos reveal how I used upholstery fabric stretched on two small pieces of wood to fill the center of the doors. I recommend looking at Art Parts in Boulder for upholstery fabric. There are many benefits to making your own pieces. Happy creating!
Michelle Considine, long time enthusiast of Boulder’s Resource Central and, more recently, Art Parts, volunteers for these organizations with the intention of promoting reuse and creativity. Aside from being an environmentalist and upcycling artist of many mediums, Michelle privately tutors high school math and physics in the Boulder area as well as online, hikes year-round, and loves time with her family and friends.
