# help deciding cabinet door size



## chsdiyer (Dec 12, 2011)

We are in the process of building cabinets for our kitchen and I'm clearly not good at size visualization or planning. We have a wall with three cabinets that are 23" wide (inset shaker style). The upper cabinets are going to be stacked and I chose 39" with 18" above. I think I planned that wrong by cutting the side pieces at 57". I assembled the boxes tonight and the dimensions just look funny to me. Not sure what I should do now. Single doors seem to be too big and I'm thinking having double doors might make it look better, but might also make it too busy as the doors would be about 10" each. The interior space is 21.5". I probably should have planned for having four 18" cabinets. I've attached a picture of the cabinets, the board nailed shows roughly where the dividing rail will be. I'm going to put a piece of 3/4" plywood in that spot to nail to to make it look like stacked cabinets but there's just one box. They're sitting on a 2x4 that's not part of the cabinet. Any advice on how I might be able to make this look alright?


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## red68mgb (Aug 21, 2019)

I got a little confused when you were mixing up width and height. I'm lost about the 10" number. Will you be using a face frame?

IMO, a 57" high door might look pretty big, perhaps prone to warping. Two stacked doors could be broken up by using glass inserts in the uppers, maybe with some led accent lighting if that look appealed to you.

A solid back or an additional mounting rail might help with support for this large a cabinet. 

In my time as a kitchen designer, I tried to avoid 21" wide doors if possible. They seem too big and open further into the room.


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## chsdiyer (Dec 12, 2011)

Hey Red, sorry. Essentially I built a 57" box to have a stacked looking cabinet. I'll have a roughly 39" below an 18". There will be a middle rail with a divider behind it. So it will look like two stacked cabinets, but there's just the one 57" box. I definitely plan to have extra mounting rails in there. The cabinets will be inset and I still plan to add a bead to the faceframe so the actual door width will be 21.5" - bead thickness - 1/8" gaps for door. That's assuming a 1.5" stile between them.

The 10" reference was that if 21" door is too big, would it look better with two doors (roughly 10") to break that up? Or would I be better off scrapping the whole thing and starting over? We're in a time crunch to get our CO before Christmas so I'll probably just leave it open shelving if that's the case. There are three base cabinets below that would have the same issue. Is 21" too wide for a base cabinet? The Island is about 42" across from those. 

I've attached the kitchen design. These cabinets have room to be wider, but I also made the mistake of putting the wall oven in the corner so i needed more room to open the door for that and shrunk these down to 23" cabinets.


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## red68mgb (Aug 21, 2019)

Hah, I just noticed you're in Charleston - I'm in Murrell's Inlet!

The face frame sounds great. If I were you, I'd be hesitant about scrapping - even without the time pressure. IMO, 10" doors would look pretty busy, especially with the 39" height, but you could always dummy it up with some scrap to see.

The 21" doors are more of a concern for the base cabinets, but it is a nice width for the drawers. You could make the center cabinet a drawer base, then the adjacent cabinets hinged R/L. 

I like the symmetry of the island, in fact I like symmetry as much as possible. You might want to consider making that island base to the left of the sink two 12" doors, or hinging it left. If you stay with a single door, that might be a nice spot for a pull out garbage/recycling if you can spare the storage. In the semi-custom industry, 24" was the only cabinet where you had the choice of a single door or two. Be sure to leave plenty of clearance around the island - I always like 48" all around if space allows.

The oven at the end of the run isn't ideal, but it's not like you stand there with the oven door open for 10 minutes.

Any reason you aren't using 30" base cabinets (with 2 butt doors) on either side of what looks like a cooktop? Everyone will appreciate the wider drawers and the possibility of wide roll outs in the base, especially if you avoid the center stile. Microwave above the cooktop is popular and convenient.

Nothing above the fridge? You could always add it later, and I'd suggest allowing for a full 36" width. A full 24" depth is superior, but it needs a support panel at least on outside. 


Jim


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## DrRobert (Apr 27, 2015)

I think it will be fine. You can use cardboard or 1/4" material and play around with different door heights. Draw in the rails and stiles. The will definitely be long, skinny doors, but that is not necessarily a bad thing if they are stand alone cabs on a wall by themselves. 



You may find decreasing the height might produce a proportion more pleasing to the eye. Some it going to depend on what's on either sided of the cabs and how that will blend in.


And be aware of the paralysis of analysis. So many times in designing I've found myself returning to my first concept. After hours and hours & several permutations designing a trestle base, I declared "I really like this one!!" to which my wife replied "Wasn't that was the first one you showed me?"


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## red68mgb (Aug 21, 2019)

Regarding the 39/18 door height ratio, I suppose someone with decorator's eye would have some insight. Right now, you're pretty close to 2:1, but the cardboard idea is a good one. 

After all, what is pleasing to your eye is all that's important.


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## chsdiyer (Dec 12, 2011)

Jim/Robert, thanks for the information!!

Jim, I’ve never been to Murrell’s Inlet but heard it’s nice. We almost bought land in Mclellanville but it was a little too scary for us. 

Sounds like two doors might be funny looking, but I’ll mock it up and see. I prefer not to scrap them either. We’ve been through a nightmare of a house build and just need to get it over with!! But also trying to avoid adding more to the “list of things to do after we move in”. I like the idea of putting the drawer in the middle and two sides having doors. I was thinking to make them all drawer, but that’s a lot of drawers. The two on each side of the cooktop are 33” drawer cabinets. Should the base of those be made with ½” plywood (instead of ¼”)? 

The symmetry is what drove me to put the wall oven/microwave on the left of that run of cabinets. The fridge is a counter depth fridge that I plan to have a built in cabinet for it. Walls on the side and a 40” tall or so cabinet above. The ceilings are 10 feet. With the 57” cabinets they run up about 9” shy of the ceiling. I’ll do a 1x8 with a profile molded at the bottom where it lands on the rail and then crown at the top. The spot to the left of the sink is where we putting pull out trash cans. Haven’t looked into that yet though as to how many we can fit in there. Maybe 2 for trash and 1 recycling or just two. 

On the island I think I have about 42” around. I have some room to wiggle, but the plumbing and electrical are already coming up the floor. 

I got the 39/18 from some suggestions I read about on Houzz. I can’t remember what we did on our old house. I thought I did 42 and 15, but I think those were 54” tall uppers. I think I have a post on here from it.

I definitely have a gift for paralysis from analysis!! Especially if it’s something that will be semi-permanent.


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## red68mgb (Aug 21, 2019)

chsdiyer said:


> Jim/Robert, thanks for the information!!
> 
> The two on each side of the cooktop are 33” drawer cabinets. Should the base of those be made with ½” plywood (instead of ¼”)? ]
> 
> ...


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

Too late this go around, but in the future, draw everything to scale on graph paper. Just count boxes, dont even need a ruler and straight edge. It's quick and easy.


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

Tony B said:


> Too late this go around, but in the future, draw everything to scale on graph paper. Just count boxes, dont even need a ruler and straight edge. It's quick and easy.


Or go to the Ikea site and plan your kitchen with their online program, you don't need to buy from them but it wlll help to keep everything in standard proportions.


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## chsdiyer (Dec 12, 2011)

Thanks. Not familiar with Rev-A-Shelf but looking it up now.

Graph paper would have been a good idea. I have a home designer software which gives tons of different views and they seemed ok in that, but maybe part of my problem is that I extended the 21" to 23" because i had misplaced a wall receptacle and wanted it to be over the counter. Putting them to 23" made that happen...apparently at the expense of having a goofy wall of cabinets. 

On a side topic...I'm building these with maple plywood and plan to just clear coat the interior. Is there a product that is better for doing this? Any water-based poly?


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## chsdiyer (Dec 12, 2011)

Well, I mocked it up a little and still couldn't decide, but I did decide to just move forward. Maybe once the faceframe is on i'll be able to determine 1 door or two. I'll probably just do one door and worst case i can always move these to the garage and build new ones. Still not sure why i actually built them at 23" cabinets because 21 might actually have been ok. Oh well, here's a picture of where i'm at. 

I was able to get the wall oven/microwave cabinet equal height with the fridge. They both will take a 40.5" upper cabinet to equal the height of the three 23" ones. I'll break them up into two I think and have a rail the same height as the other cabinets.


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