Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinet Doors

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After years of glossy kitchen doors in a variety of colors, more natural materials are making a comeback. The traditional wooden kitchen in grandma’s house is long gone, replaced by the new era of modern wooden kitchens with sleek lines and clean edges.

Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinet Doors

I’ve been obsessed with plywood kitchens for a while, and when I arrived at my new kitchen, I knew I had to have a plywood item. All cooking areas with kitchen cabinets made of plywood are gorgeous, but since everything is custom made, it also comes with a hefty price tag. Using high street kitchen cabinets with doors made of plywood is a much more affordable way to create the look.

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Considering all these, I decided to use standard kitchen cabinets and make my own doors. This was a bit of a do-it-yourself experiment on my part, but I thought it was worth a try since plywood is a relatively inexpensive material. I’m happy to say it worked really well and I’m happy with the results. The cost of five doors was the same as the average cost of a single custom plywood cabinet door.

Whether you want a completely DIY kitchen or not, creating your own custom cabinet doors is very satisfying. Here’s how I did it.

5. Waterproof sealant or polyurethane: I used Osmo Polyx Hard Wax Oil from Amazon (opens in new tab).

There is a wide range of plywood to choose from. For me, I love birch plywood but this is also softwood plywood. Although widely used in construction, it does not have natural resistance to water like some woods, which means further processing is required.

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Once you’ve decided on the type of plywood you want to use, it can be purchased online, at your local lumber yard, or at major DIY or home improvement stores. I recommend getting it from a place that offers a cutting service, this is the easiest way to make sure you have nice straight cuts on your doors.

When cutting your doors, you need to make sure they are the right size. This is fairly simple to do when using a standard kitchen cabinet. If you go to the supplier’s website, you can check the size of the doors they supply with their kitchen. I used Ikea base cabinets in my kitchen and my doors needed to be 59.7 cm by 79.7 cm to fit correctly. The thickness of the doors is also important, they are too thick and will catch the next door when opening and are too thin and more susceptible to bending and damage. Ikea doors are 2cm thick, standard plywood sheets come in a variety of sizes and I chose to use 1.8cm thick plywood for a close fit with the original doors.

Depending on your measurements, you should be able to get several doors for each sheet of plywood. I needed 5 doors for my kitchen and so I calculated that I would need to use two standard sheets of plywood. I cut these doors at my local home improvement store, which meant I had precision cut doors that were square and just the right size.

The next step is the most monotonous. Plywood is generally smooth but by no means as smooth as a standard kitchen door. You need to sand all over the doors to get a better finish. Start with a medium grit sandpaper all over. If possible, use an electric sander as it will speed up the process.

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Pay close attention to the edges of the door, as these will be the roughest, fill all holes with a wood filler that matches the color of the plywood after your first round of sanding. Finish with a fine-grained sandpaper and check regularly by rubbing your hand over the plywood and you’ll know when it’s done.

This is the most important step. As we all know, kitchens are messy and wet areas, so wood needs to be treated to protect it from this. If you don’t, the wood will be stained and the splashes will cause the doors to warp over time. You can waterproof your wood with polyurethane, woodworking oil or waterproofing paste. I used Osmo Polyx Hard Waxing Oil (opens in new tab) from Amazon.

Before applying my waterproofing to the cabinet doors, I used some scrap plywood and did some stain testing using seasonings. I found that four coats of Osmo Oil (opens in new tab) on the front of the doors are optimal for stain and moisture protection. This may be an exaggeration but I wanted to make sure and so far almost a year later the doors are spotless.

To apply the oil, first wipe the cover with a damp cloth and first remove all sanding residue. Using a clean brush, apply the oil and spread it thinly on the door (oil goes a long way). Allow the layer to dry for four hours before applying the second coat. If you are using a different type of varnish, follow the directions for use on the tin.

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For this, I bought IKEA kitchen hinges as if I bought the doors directly from IKEA. I used their 153֯ angled hinges with built-in dampers that I found work best for my space. I also purchased a hinge jig to cut the hole in the door for the hinge to fit. Cutting the hole in the right place is the hardest part of this DIY project. As a guide, I bought the cheapest Ikea door (VEDDINGE) to measure the correct position of the holes. To do this, I measured the center point of the door hole from the sides of the door. I then marked the same location (top and bottom) on the plywood door.

Using the jig I drilled a hole in the door to the correct depth. I recommend practicing this on some spare plywood until you’re sure you’ll be doing it on the door. Next, attach the hardware to the door.

After the doors are cut, the final step is to hang the doors using the pre-made holes in your kitchen cabinets. I also used one of the doors as the front of our integrated dishwasher. The dishwasher came with its own door fixing kit, so be sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

This can also be done on drawer fronts or padding around appliances and walls. I’ve used this for both inside and outside drawer fronts and got the correct dimensions for their equivalents from Ikea’s website.

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Jo Lemos is a DIYer and decorator who describes her projects on her popular Instagram account @two.men.and.a.semi. His DIY obsession started when he was a kid when he helped his parents redecorate the family home. Since then, she has been honing her DIY skills for two decades, resulting in a complete renovation of her current home with her partner Chris. Currently, the duo are restoring a 1930s semi-detached house in Manchester that had been badly renovated over the years. For Jo, sustainable and affordable design is the best way to renovate your home, and she thinks her renovation motto is: “Why pay someone when I can do it myself?” It sounds like it should be hard to build cabinets for your kitchen, bathroom, or built-ins, but it isn’t! Most cabinets are just easy boxes. And the joint can be hidden outside the cabinets, which is hidden when the cabinets are installed.

Last year, I took on the task of building all the cabinets for our DIY kitchen remodel. I’ve saved thousands of dollars making high-end cabinets with basic tools. You can read all about the inexpensive tools I use to build my cabinets here.

So if you want to learn how to build cabinets for your own remodels, I’ll break down all the information for you.

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Make Cabinets The Easy Way

There are many reasons why building your own cabinets is far better than buying prefab cabinets or paying a hug price for custom cabinets.

There are two main types of cabinets you can see when buying or building: pre-frame cabinets and frameless (or European-style cabinets). Both of these cabinet styles can be created by you.

Which one you choose depends on the style you are looking for. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Choose which one you prefer based on these and the style you are looking for in your space.

Front-frame cabinets are cabinets that have a frame that covers the front of the cabinet box. The box is made of plywood and then the front frame is made of solid wood (typically 1x2s) and attached to the front to cover the edge of the plywood. Face-frame cabinets are more traditional in the US and

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