New Hinges for Your Kitchen Cabinets

by John Tuthill
Face Your Kitchen Columnist

Replacing old hinges and hardware is any easy kitchen cabinet improvement project that will give you a full return on your investment. New hinges breathe life into creaky old cabinet doors, while creating a cohesive, updated look. The type of hinges you choose will depend on the style of your kitchen cabinet doors.

Lipped Doors

Kitchen cabinet doors may be constructed with a lip completely surrounding the exterior edge. The most common type of hinge for lipped doors is the traditional hinge, which is fully exposed and rests on the front frame of the cabinet. When refinishing your kitchen cabinets, you may want to fit your lipped doors with barrel or knife hinges, which are partially embedded to provide 180 degrees of movement for the door.

Flush Doors

If your kitchen cabinet doors rest snugly inside the face frame of the cabinet, then the doors are considered flush. A common hinge for flush doors is the butterfly hinge, with a simple mechanism named for its wing-like construction.

Overlay Doors

Kitchen cabinet doors with an overlay are cut oversize to allow the edges of the door to rest on the border of the door opening. Concealed, pivot hinges are normally fit on overlay doors. Concealed hinges are screwed into the backs of your kitchen cabinet doors and connected by the hinge to the interior edges of the face frame or wall of wood kitchen cabinets. Concealed hinges are available with a self-closing mechanism and also offer accessible adjustments to make your kitchen cabinet doors square and flush.  

Whichever door and hinge combination you choose, your kitchen cabinet refinishing project will benefit from the addition of new, smoothly-functioning hinges.

About the Author
John Tuthill is a cabinet maker and a regular FaceYourKitchen columnist. He lives in Missoula, Montana.