How to Replace Kitchen Cabinet Doors for a New Look

Did you know you can replace just your kitchen cabinet doors (and drawer fronts)? This is, of course, a much cheaper option than replacing the entire cabinet. But just how easy is it to get the right measurements, order your new doors and hinges, bore your own holes for the hinges, install the hinges, mount and adjust the new doors? Ok, that sounds like a lot. But really, it’s not hard at all! Let’s break it down. As the saying goes: “There’s only one way to eat an elephant, one bite at a time.”

This post is sponsored by The Cabinet Door Store. All opinions are 100% my own. Thank you for supporting the brands we truly love.

Currently, I’m tackling my biggest project yet…my kitchen! These old doors were not the look I was going for…

I knew I wanted something more modern and had my eye on these Shaker Cabinets from The Cabinet Door Store.

HOW TO ORDER KITCHEN CABINET DOORS

When measuring for my new doors, I simply measured my old doors and drawer fronts. I found this method to be the easiest. You’ll want to measure the length and width of each door. It’s a good idea to keep track of what each door measures. Since I was getting rid of my old doors, I wrote each measurement on the back of the door I was replacing. When the new doors came in, I was able to match them up with the old doors to determine where each new door went.

The Cabinet Door Store makes the ordering process very easy. Here’s a screenshot of the online order form…

Here’s an example of the order form for one of my cabinet doors…

The width and height is self-explanatory. For the wood species, I chose Paint Grade Maple w/ HDF Panel. This option is perfect if you plan to paint your doors. As you can see, I also went with 2 1/4″ frame width (this is standard), along with unfinished and no hinge-boring (these are also standard). Of course, you can upgrade any of these for a little extra cost.

Once you’ve added all of your cabinet doors and drawer fronts to your cart, you’re ready to check out. But if you have any questions along the way, the reps at The Cabinet Door Store are ready to help you out. They have an excellent customer service department. I know, because I got stuck on drilling my hinge cup holes and they walked me through it, making the process seamless. They’re also very active over on Instagram and responded immediately to any questions I had on my stories when tagging them or DM’ing them. I can’t say enough good about how helpful they are!

My cabinet doors arrived within a few weeks and I was ready for the next step.

ORDERING AND ATTACHING THE HINGES

I decided to drill my own hinge cup holes. This tool by Kreg Jig made this a super easy process. (More to come on this further down in the post). However, if you prefer, The Cabinet Door Store will drill your holes for you.

To get started, I first ordered my hinges. I chose soft-closing hinges from Amazon and am very happy with the quality of these. Before ordering, you’ll want to determine if your cabinets are frameless or face frame. Face frame looks like this…

(Amazon Affiliate Links Included)

Notice how there’s a frame around the cabinet opening? That is what makes this a face frame cabinet. If your cabinet does not have a frame around it, it is called a frameless cabinet. This is important in determining what type of hinges you’ll need.

For a frameless cabinet, I recommend these hinges.

For a face frame cabinet, I recommend these hinges.

The next thing you’ll need to determine, when ordering your hinges, is the overlay. Simply put, overlay is the amount or distance the cabinet door overlaps the frame on the hinge side of the door. The easiest way to measure this is, by drawing a line along the outside of your existing door (hinge side)….

Then from the inside of your existing door, measure with a ruler to that line….

This will tell you the distance that your cabinet door overhangs onto your cabinet frame. Mine had a 1/2″ overlay, so when purchasing my hinges, I looked for ones with the following features: 1/2″ overlay, face frame, 35mm, soft-close. Soft-close is not a necessity, but it is a very nice feature.

Once you have your hinges, you’ll need to drill your cup holes for the hinges to sit inside. The Kreg Jig Concealed Hinge Jig made this process very easy. For the Shaker cabinet doors I chose, I made sure my cams were set at 3mm each….

I then set my jig, so that my cup holes will be inset at 3″ from the edge of the door. You’ll notice the ruler on the edge of your jig, make sure the 3″ mark is at the edge of your door. (My apologies for how distorted this image is, I tried to zoom in as far as I could to show you the 3″ marking)….

Once your jig is in place, you’ll want to clamp it down before you start drilling…

Drill cup holes on both ends of your door at the 3″ mark…

Now you’re ready to drill your hinges into place. Place the hinges inside the cup holes…

Clamp a straight board down along those hinges to keep them in place…

Attach your hinges, using the screws provided….

Once you have your hinges in place….

You’re now ready to attach the door to your cabinet.

ATTACHING THE DRAWER FRONTS

I found this step to be very tricky, until I perused YouTube and found the best technique to attach the drawer fronts. Using Gorilla Mounting Tape.

I stuck a square on each corner of the actual drawer….

And then lined up my drawer front and stuck it into place on these 4 tape squares…

Once in place, I was ready to drill them from the inside of the drawer…

This technique worked like a charm! It made attaching these drawer fronts SO easy!

I chose to attach all of the kitchen cabinet doors and drawers before painting. I then took them all down to paint. The reason I decided to do it this way, was to ensure I got my cabinet door holes where they needed to be. I thought it would be better to not have to handle the doors and drawers as much once they were painted. This way they were fully ready to be attached once painted….

Coming soon: The beautiful hardware I chose for my kitchen cabinet doors. They already look amazing, but will be stunning once I add the finishing touches. The frosting, as I like to call them!

A much better view with my new countertops. Tutorial coming soon on how I painted the countertops above, to look like the countertops below. Yep! Those are the same countertops!! Can’t wait for the upcoming post…check out this one from when I did this same technique to my master bathroom. Two years later, they look like the day I finished them. 🙂

And with the new flooring I’ll be Installing in a few weeks! Wow! I can’t wait to see the finished result!

I can’t recommend The Cabinet Door Store enough! If your kitchen is in need of a fresh new look, replacing the cabinet doors and drawer fronts is an easy, and cost-effective way to achieve this. The Cabinet Door Store has so many styles to choose from and once again, the customer service is outstanding. They will make this process so easy for you!

Until next week,

Happy Building, Friend!!

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