The Kitchen - Part Two Cabinet Door Ideas (April 7, 2009)

Above all else, your cabinets set the style for your entire kitchen. No matter what appliances, curtains, floor or wall coverings you choose, it's the cabinets that will ultimately dictate the ¡°style¡± of your kitchen. That's because they're the most visible, and thus the most important element to consider when you design or remodel your kitchen.

And, it's really the cabinet doors and drawer fronts that most express this style. Because of their importance, making new cabinet doors is probably the easiest way to remodel your kitchen. Change these doors (and drawer fronts) and you've changed the kitchen decor. It's that simple!

Most cabinet doors are made in one of two ways: Either as a solid board front...or as a frame-and-panel style. Unless you decide to build from veneered particleboard or MDF, you run a great risk of a single-board door warping eventually - even if it's made of plywood. That's why all of the doors we've made here are of frame-and-panel construction.

Making The Frame
Door frames are typically made from four pieces: two vertical stiles, a top rail and a bottom rail. A rabbet on the inside edges of all four pieces holds the panel in place. When constructing frame-and-panel doors, there are a variety of ways to join the rails and stiles together. You could use biscuits or dowels...you could use half-lap joints...or you could use the longest-lasting joint of all (and the least likely to sag), the mortise-and-tenon joint.

Start by determining the final size of your cabinet doors. This will depend on the way you want to hang them. You can either choose to insert them completely inside the cabinet frame -- cut a lip around the door edges so they're partially inset - or do neither, allowing the doors to completely overlap the door opening.

If you're planning to inset them, be sure to make them 1/16" smaller in height and width than your opening to allow for clearance. The easiest way to do this is to make them the same size as your opening, then use your Jointer (set to take a 1/32" cut) to shave them down to the final desired dimension.

If you want them to partially or completely overlap your door opening, make them 1/4" to 3/8" larger than your door opening, all the way around.

Start by cutting the rails and stiles to size. Usually, these are 3/4" thick by 2" wide, except for the top rail. That's because, in two of the doors we've built here, we made our top rails slightly wider so we could cut a simple curve in them with a Bandsaw. This curve will not interfere with the joinery.

Next, cut a 1/4" deep by 5/16" wide rabbet on the inside edges of your stiles and rails. You could either use a Dado set-up...a Router Table with a straight bit...or a Shaper set-up with a 1" Blank Cutter and a 1-1/4" Shaper Collar. The Dado method is probably the easiest for straight-sided stiles and rails, while the Shaper or Router set-up will cut a smooth rabbet in either the straight or curved edges.

Use a Hollow Chisel Mortising set-up with a 3/8" Chisel to cut a 2" long by 3/4" deep by 3/8" wide stub mortise in both ends of each stile (See fig. 1). These will mate with the tenons formed in each end of your rails. Of course, if you've chosen one of our curved-top door styles, your top mortises may have to be longer or shorter than 2".

Now, using your Dado set-up with a Tenoning Jig...or a Molder set-up with a Blank Cutter, form the tenons in the ends of your rails. These tenons should be 3/8" wide by 3/4" long on the front side and 7/16" long on the back side (See ¡°Corner Joint Detail¡± drawing). Assemble the frames with glue and set aside to dry thoroughly.

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