Build a Front for an Existing Cabinet

Did a previous owner leave you a mixed blessing—a built-in wall cabinet with a way-too-ugly face? Do you have a closet that could be turned into a good-looking cabinet? Are you interested in building an attractive china cabinet in a dining-room wall?

If so, keep reading to learn how to make a hardwood cabinet face and doors. Although you'll have to work accurately, the process is straightforward: Strip off the old face, if there is one, make a new hardwood face, and then make doors to match. I'll explain how to make doors with wood panels and glass inserts.

Step 1: Make the Face and Frame

Start by removing the old doors, molding, and face. Then plan your course of attack. The cabinet shown here is surrounded by four edgewise pieces I call jambs, for their resemblance to window jambs. Before attaching the jambs, I narrowed the opening so the new doors would be more graceful than the old. I divided the opening into four smaller openings with rails. After building the face, I attached drywall to the ugly plywood seen in the early photos.

You may have to improvise to attach the face. If, like me, you have an existing cabinet, the jamb attachment should be obvious. Otherwise, as shown in the diagram, attach the side jambs to the studs at the edges of the cabinet.

Install the Jambs

The jambs must be wide enough to hide the framing, and extend 1¹⁄₄" above the finished wall surface. That leaves ¹⁄₂" protruding past the ³⁄₄" cove molding that joins the jambs to the wall.

The top jamb must be wide enough to cover the header above the cabinet. Fasten the top jamb with 2" hardened trim screws. As with all screw holes in this project, countersink the screw head so it will rest below the surface. At the end, hide these heads with wood filler.

Cut the ends of the side jambs square, and butt them under the top jamb. Check that the side jambs are plumb and screw about every 16" into the studs and/or filler strip.

Cut and fasten the bottom jamb under the side jambs.

Install the Rails

With the jambs in place, cut and install the horizontal and vertical rails. I used a plate joiner (also called a biscuit cutter) to hold the rails to the plywood shelves, but trim screws would also work. Plate joiners cut a slot in both pieces you will join. After you glue in a plate, the joint becomes extremely strong.

Like the jambs, the rails get a simple butt joint at the corners. Cut the ends for a snug fit, clamp the parts flush, and screw through the joint.

Screw through the side jamb into the center rail with a 2¹⁄₄" trim screw. This screw will hide under the cove molding.

Trim the Face

With the face done, nail ³⁄₄" cove molding around the edges. Use outside miter joints, as described for baseboards Install Crown Molding. (Note: If the drywall is not yet attached, nail the cove molding after it is.)

To attach the cove molding, drill and then drive a regular finish nail. Hardened trim nails generally don't need a pilot hole. A pneumatic brad nailer will make short work of attaching molding. Drive 1", 18-gauge nails at an angle so they don't come through the jamb.

Step 2: Cut the Doors

With the face and jambs in place, size and cut the doors. In the example, all doors are the same width, but the top and bottom were a different height. Each door is 1" wider, and 1" taller, than its opening, so they overlap the jambs by ¹⁄₂".

I used 1 × 4 hardwood for the door parts; 1 × 3 would work on smaller doors. Test the proportions with cardboard, which is a lot cheaper than hardwood!

Cut the door parts from hardwood, using a power miter box, if you have one, or a table saw or a hand miter box. Read your saw manual. If it's safe to cut two parts in a stack, cut both sides for each door together, label them, and glue them into the same door. The reason? Better accuracy yields tighter joints.

Cut the Joints

If you have—or can rent—a plate joiner, cut plate joints in the end of the door parts. Otherwise, put polyurethane glue—Gorilla Glue or PL Premium Construction Adhesive are two popular brands—in the joint. Clamp the parts exactly in position, and drive two 2¹ ₄" trim screws at each joint. Drill a slightly larger hole through the outer piece, and a smaller one in the inner piece. Polyurethane sets slowly, giving you time to get the joints right.

From here on, your technique will depend on whether your doors will get glass inserts or plywood panels:

• Doors with glass get a rabbet—a two-sided rectangular cutout.

• Doors with plywood panels get a dado—a three-sided rectangular cutout.

Rout a dado or rabbet on the inside of each door part, depending on whether it will get a wood panel or glass insert.

Step 3: Glue the Doors

Now for some fun—it's door-clamping time. You've worked accurately so far, but it's no time to let your guard down. Clamp the doors square and flat in a clamping jig built from ³⁄₄" plywood, with one square corner. Then glue the doors in two stages.

Glue the First Corner

Before clamping the first corner, check that all joints fit with the joiner plates in place. Make any adjustments before you slather the joints with glue! If the plates are loose in the slots, don't use yellow wood glue, which requires a tight fit. Instead, use polyurethane glue, which fills gaps and is incredibly strong (although it is harder to clean up and slower to set). Cover your glue joints with wax paper so the parts don't stick to the jig and the scrap-wood blocks that protect the parts from clamps.

It's tempting to glue the entire door at once, but that's foolhardy. It's much easier to get a rectangle if you glue one joint first.

Here's a trick for clamping parts with mitered ends: Dry-assemble the whole door, and then clamp the whole door to tighten the first joint.

Clamp the door in the clamping jig, holding the joint tight, square, and flat. The jig should be screwed to 2 × 4s to hold it flat. Glue only this one corner. Clean spilled carpenter's glue with a wet rag.

As you tighten the clamps, always check that:

• The miters meet exactly at the corners.

• The miter joints are closed.

• The miter joints are compressed so the joints and the door are flat.

• The door parts touch the rails on the gluing jig.

• You've cleaned up extra glue.

Tighten the clamps gradually, making sure the door stays square.

When the glue is set (30 minutes for carpenter's glue, longer for polyurethane), remove the clamps.

Finish Gluing the Door

When the first joint is finished, glue the other three miter joints, add the joiner plates, and clamp. Insert a wood panel in the door before assembly. Insert glass when the door is finished, as described later. If you're using a ¹⁄₄" veneer plywood panel, squirt glue into the dado on each door part and insert the panel. If the plywood is loose in the dado, flip the door over and press nails into the back.

Push loose plywood toward the front of the dado with a 4-penny finish nail every 4" or so. Remove the nails after the glue dries.

Turn the door right side up and clamp as described earlier in the chapter.

Quickly assemble the door, before the glue sets. See the earlier discussion for important clamping considerations.

Step 4: Dress Up the Doors

Once the clamping is done, it's time to dress up the edges, and, if necessary, insert the glass.

Finish the Doors

The best tool for dressing up the door edges is a router. A cove bit makes a nice, subtle design; much improved over a square corner, in my humble opinion. If you're lucky enough to have a router table, clamp a plywood fence to the table fence so the door will slide smoothly past the router bit.

If you don't have a router, try the following:

• Round the edges with sandpaper.

• Cut an angled bevel on the outside with a hand plane.

• Cut parallel, decorative grooves with a table saw.

In any case, don't remove too much wood at the edges, or your hinge screws may come through the front.

Push wood filler into any gaps at the miter joints, wait a minute, and wipe it off with a solvent-filled rag. (Use water for water-soluble filler.)

A random orbital sander is perfect for sanding the doors. Use medium, fine, and then extra-fine sandpaper. Hand-sand the door edges.

If you want, sand, screw and lightly glue a decorative strip to the panel. I used a ³⁄₁₆" thick molding called mullion casing.

Countersink a hole and drive ³⁄₈" × #4 flat-head brass screws in a regular pattern to fasten the center strip. Finally, stain the doors.

Glass Comes Last

It's finally time to lay glass in a glass-panel door. Measure the opening, and have a glass company cut a piece of ¹⁄₈" glass. Silicone caulking (buy a type that sticks to glass and wood) holds the glass in the rabbet.

Carefully lay in the glass, clean caulking off the front, and let the caulk set.

Step 5: Mount the Doors

At last, victory is in sight! If you've worked carefully, the doors should practically fall into place. Almost.

After some experimentation, I settled on ¹⁄₂" overlay hinges, which placed the doors on top of ¹⁄₂" of the jambs. I bought brass-plated hinges because they include brass-plated screws, which are strong enough to work in hardwood. The solid-brass screws supplied with solid-brass hinges strip easily in hardwood.

Knobs make a real difference in appearance, so choose them carefully. Turn the knob tightly onto its screw.

Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Simple Home Improvements © 2004 by David J. Tenenbaum. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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