This is a short guide to going about using our kitchen doors to build the kitchen of your dreams and saving a small fortune in the process. We are not about to tell you how to design a kitchen, there are many books on the subject available widely from public libraries and elsewhere.
Replacement kitchen doors are surprisingly easy to fit and can transform an out of date kitchen for a fraction of the cost of buying a new kitchen. We supply a range of high quality kitchen doors and all the items necessary to finish a kitchen to a high professional standard, such as plinths, cornice and end panels etc. Our doors can be used for a kitchen makeover using your existing cabinets or can be used for a full on brand new kitchen project, buying doors and accessories from us will save you a small fortune when compared to buying a kitchen on the high street. We do not supply carcasses or cabinets, these are widely available from DIY stores and specialist manufacturers some of which supply online. Initial planning of your new kitchen would start by figuring out what size carcasses can be fitted into the space available to achieve the desired look, following this it is a fairly simple process to select the correct doors to fit the carcasses. The vast majority of kitchen doors come in standard sizes so if you are looking to refurbish an existing kitchen this should prove to be fairly straight forward.
Matching Doors to Carcass Sizes Doors sizes are listed on our website in the format height x width. So a 715x497 is 715mm high and 497mm wide.
Kitchen doors are generally designed to give a 2.5mm clearance on the hight of the carcase. A 715mm high door is used to fit a 720mm high carcase with a 2.5mm gap at the top and the bottom. 715mm + 2.5mm + 2.5mm = 720mm. Similarly the doors are designed to give a 1.5mm clearance on the width of the carcase.Therefore the width of the door is normally 3mm less than the width of the carcase. In the case of solid timber doors there may be a slight variance on these clearances to allow for timber expansion. For example a single 600mm wide carcase will require a door measuring 715mm (h) x 597mm (w), a 1000mm wide carcase will require two doors measuring 715mm (h) x (497mm (w).
Our range of doors will fit 95% of all modern kitchen requirements.
Generally standard base unit carcasses are 720mm high, and they are fitted with either a single 715mm high door (known as base line) or one of the following door/ drawer combinations with 5mm gaps between the doors:
5 x 139mm high drawer fronts (5 x 139mm + 4 x 5mm gaps = 715mm). 4 x 175mm high drawer fronts (4 x 175mm + 3 x 5mm gaps = 715mm). 1 x 570mm high door plus 1 x 139mm high drawer front (1 x 570mm + 1 x 139mm + 1 x 5mm gap = 714mm). 2 x 283mm high door plus 1 x 139mm high drawer front (2 x 283mm + 1 x 139mm + 2 x 5mm gap = 715mm). 2 x 355mm high door plus (2 x 355mm + 1 x 5mm gap = 715mm).
Wall units used to be 570mm high but now are usually either 720mm or 900mm high.
Door Hinges Our kitchen doors are not pre-drilled for hinges, the reason for this is simple, there are at least 100 or more kitchen carcase/ cabinet manufacturers in the UK and guess what, there is not a standard position for hinges, so whether you are using your existing carcases or buying new ones, it is impossible for a door manufacturer to know exactly where your carcasses have been drilled for hinges. Therefore our doors will need drilling to accept hinges. This is common and if you are employing a kitchen fitter to fit your new kitchen they should be able to perform this task easily. It is of course possible for a keen DIY'er to do this job as well, with a little patience and care. Modern kitchen doors are attatched to carcases with a concealed cabinet hinge, sometimes refered to as 'Blum' hinges.
The hinge cup attatches to the door by being pressed into a 35mm diameter hole drilled into the door and is fixed with two small screws, the 35mm hole is drilled using a special Forstner bit, ideally on a pillar drill or using a plunge router and jig, there are also specialist tools available for drilling such as the Blum hinge tool pictured.
Concealed hinge.
Forstner bit..
Blum hinge drilling tool and jig. It is possible to rent these from better tool hire companies.
