How to Install New Kitchen Cabinet Doors
Replacing kitchen cabinet doors can bring a new lease on life to a home. The majority of new cabinet doors come complete with all the fittings required to install them and tend to be hung using either blum or grass hinges. These make fitting your new cabinet doors quick and easy with a few simple tools. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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1
Set out each door with its handle, hinge and connecting hinge plate. This will ensure the correct fittings have been included.
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2
Decide which direction each new cabinet door will open. For a double cabinet, hinge the right-hand door on the right and the left-hand door on the left. For a single cabinet door, place the hinge on the left side.
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3
Push each hinge into the pre-drilled hole on the door and tap it into place with a hammer. Ensure the arm of the hinge hangs over the nearest edge of the door when fully extended. This should be at a right angle to the top edge of the door.
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4
Remove existing hinge plates from the inside of the cabinet. Do this by unscrewing the fixings, unless you will re-use them for the new doors.
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5
Mark the width between hinges. Begin by measuring the width between the two hinges on your door. Then mark corresponding holes onto the inside of your cabinet with a pencil, ensuring they are on the correct side for hanging.
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Drill a small pilot hole on each of the pencil marks.
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Place screws in the hinge plate, screwing them in fully.
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8
Decide on the positioning of the door handles. Handles tend to be fitted on the side of the door farthest away from the hinges. The kind of handle will dictate where it needs to be fixed. As a rule of thumb, though, handles tend to be fitted near the bottom opening edge of wall cabinets or the top opening edge of base units.
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Create holes for the door handles. To begin, measure the position of the holes for the first handle. Drill the holes, and replicate the process with the rest of the doors.
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10
Attach the handles. Screw them in securely.
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Position hinges over hinge plates. Open the hinges of one door fully and align them over the hinge plates inside the cabinet. Ensure the position screws on the hinge plates are slightly raised to incorporate the hinge arm snugly beneath them.
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Tighten these screws when the door is in place and fully aligned with the cabinet. Some repositioning of the hinges within the hinge plate may be needed until this is achieved.
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Tips & Warnings
Single cabinets set against perpendicular walls to their right tend to have their doors hinged on the right rather than on the left to allow optimum access to the cabinet.
To save time, existing hinge plates can be re-used.
If your kitchen cabinet doors have protective plastic coating to cover them during installation, don't remove it until all doors are fully fitted. Using that method can prevent damage.
References
- Photo Credit kitchen doors image by willem169 from Fotolia.com
