How to Replace Kitchen Doors

Replacing your kitchen doors is generally a straight forward process providing all the necessary preparation work has taken place correctly and the person installing them is competent enough to attempt the work.

Let us take you through the process in a series of steps that will make changing your kitchen doors a procedure that allows you to complete your own changes in a short period of time and without the headaches that can occur.

Whatever your reason it shouldn’t take too long and most complete projects can be done in about a day.

Before starting, it worth remembering there are three types of doors that tend to be popular when replacing doors.

Three Types of Replacement Kitchen Doors

1. First there are standard pre-made cabinet doors. The type sold separately are generally for off the shelf kitchen cabinets, they are cheap and chirpy and if you have the same brand of previous kitchen you should get the right size to suit the cabinets you have.
2. Secondly, there are made to measure options. These will come in the size and colour you need and are generally made of a higher grade of material and will last longer and wear better.
3. The third type are refurbished doors. Often the existing doors that are either painted or sprayed. This only works for solid substrate type doors and attempting to paint any other door will give you a great looking door for about a year, then they quickly begin to deteriorate as the covering is not designed for surface paint.

When you have decided what type of door is going to fixed to your cabinets, your first job is to ensure you get the sizes right. – This means measuring each door that is required and making sure they fit the cabinet they are being fixed to. There is another resource we have that covers how to measure cabinet doors so if you are unsure, please see that.

We advise that whenever you replace an old door, you also replace the hinges too. If they are standard hinges you can use a similar replacement, although soft-close hinges are very popular these days, and they add a little touch of luxury!

If you are ordering our doors to install yourself, make sure you order them pre-drilled.

This makes it easier when it comes to fitting them, although as professionals, we prefer to drill them on-site.

Fitting hinges is very straight forward – You need to ensure they sit square at 90 degrees to the edge of the door, create two pilot holes, and secure the hinge using 12mm number 6 screws.

Fixing the backplate is equally straightforward. Normally these will be held in place with two euro screws, but if you don’t have these to hand, ordinary screws will also do just as good a job.

Once the backplates are in place, the hinges snap into position and the door is in place and good to go, only awaiting the handle, if it isn’t already a part of the door!