What Size Overlay Do I Need For Cabinet Doors

Learn everything you need to know to measure for your new cabinet doors and pick out the right hinges.

Cabinet doors are the terminal office of your DIY cabinets. Whether you build your own cabinets or only want to update your cabinets with new doors, you need to know how to effigy out the size of cabinet doors needed.

I wish I could create a chart saying if yous have this size cabinet, you need this size chiffonier door. Unfortunately, it is non that piece of cake.

Two tone kitchen with Durango Blue lower cabinets and white upper cabinets. White octagon porcelain tile backspace and silver appliances.

At that place is no standard size for the opening of your kitchen cabinets. And there are many factors that decide what size your cabinet doors need to be:

What type of cabinet y'all take?
What kind of hinges do you lot want?
How large is the frame around the cabinets?
How much overlay practice you want?
If yous accept a single or double cabinet door?

Plus, if you have corner cabinets or other specialty cabinets, the measurements can be unlike for these doors than the others.

So instead of a cabinet door sizes nautical chart that would be confusing and non piece of work, I will help you understand all the things that go into measuring for chiffonier doors.

So I'll share the formulas you need to determine the measurements for your chiffonier doors so you can buy or build the right sized doors every fourth dimension!

What Type of Cabinet Do You Have?
- What is a face up frame chiffonier?
- What is a frameless cabinet?
What kind of hinges practise you desire?
- Inset Cabinet Doors
- Overlay Cabinet Doors
- Curtained Hinges versus Surface Mount Hinges
  - Concealed Hinges
  - Surface Mount Hinges
Picking the Right Inset Hinges
Picking the Correct Overlay Hinges
- What is an overlay?
Measuring for Cabinet Doors
- How to Measure for Inset Cabinet Doors
  - How much space is needed around inset cabinet doors?
- How to Measure for Overlay Cabinet Doors
  - Inset Double Cabinet Doors
  - Overlay Double Cabinet Doors
- How to Mensurate for Corner Chiffonier Doors

What Type of Cabinet Exercise You Have?

There are 2 principal types of cabinets: face frame cabinets and frameless (or Euro-fashion cabinets).

Each style will accept different sized chiffonier doors. Make up one's mind the blazon of cabinets you lot accept beneath to help you understand how to measure out for your doors.

Kitchen with gray painted cabinets and open shelves around stove and lots of plants.

What is a face frame cabinet?

Face up frame cabinets are cabinets that have a frame roofing the front end of the chiffonier box. Face frame cabinets are more traditional in the U.s. and the ones we used in our DIY kitchen remodel.

The confront frames of y'all cabinets tin be a variety of sizes, only the most common modern confront frames tend to be around 1 1/2″ broad.

With confront frame cabinets you tin use overlay cabinet doors that sit on height of the face up frame or inset cabinets doors that sit inside the face up frame and are affluent with the front.

Overlay cabinet doors can exit a big reveal of the face frame or a smaller reveal for a more modernistic look, based on the hinges you choose.

3D sketch of a Face Frame cabinet with a drawer space.

Benefits of Confront Frame Cabinets with Overlay Doors

In the The states it is like shooting fish in a barrel to find hinges for overlay doors on your face frame cabinets.
Cabinets do non have to be perfectly square to successfully install cabinet doors (nifty for DIY).
Cabinet doors do not have to exist absolutely perfectly aligned to expect great (the confront frame offers some wiggle room).
For cabinets with double doors, yous tin have a center stile to give a little more than wiggle room when installing the double doors.

3D drawing of a large cabinet with double doors.

What is a frameless cabinet?

A frameless cabinet is a cabinet that is but fabricated from plywood. The plywood edges are covered in edge banding to finish them. They are sometimes called European mode cabinets and were made very popular past Ikea. It is a very simple, modern design for cabinets.

I of the challenges with frameless cabinets is keeping the chiffonier box perfectly square. If it is not square, yous tin can struggle with hanging doors to have an fifty-fifty reveal (the infinite betwixt the cabinet frame and the cabinet door).

You can use either overlay or inset cabinet doors for a frameless cabinet too. The simply overlay choice for frameless is a full-overlay which covers the entire (to effectually i/8″) of the cabinet sides.

3D Sketch of a frameless cabinet with space for drawer.

What kind of hinges practice you desire?

Now that you know what kind of cabinets you need doors for, let'due south talk about hinges. The hinges y'all use to hang your cabinets volition take a huge impact on the cabinet door size.

In that location are ii main types of hinges: inset or overlay.

Inset Cabinet Doors

Inset hinges will set the cabinet door inside the front of the cabinet.

For confront frame cabinets, the front of the door volition set flush with the front of the face frame.
For frameless cabinets, the front of the door will set up affluent with the front of the cabinet.

3D sketch of inset cabinet doors on a base cabinet with a drawer on top.

Overlay Cabinet Doors

Overlay hinges volition set the cabinet door on top of the front of the cabinet.

For face frame cabinets, the back of the door will sit on the front of the face frame.
For frameless cabinets, the back of the door will sit down on the forepart of the cabinet.

3D sketch of full overlay cabinet doors on a base cabinet.

There are also specialty hinges that allow a fraction of the door to exist inset with the rest overlaying the frame. These require routing to the chiffonier door and are not as common in modern chiffonier pattern so I will not be roofing them.

Each different hinges blazon offers even more options that you need to empathise before measuring for you new cabinet doors. Plus options that have no bearing on the door size.

Concealed Hinges versus Surface Mount Hinges

Once you take adamant if you lot desire the cabinet doors inset or overlay, the next matter yous need to know is if you lot want your hinges concealed or surface mount.

Concealed Hinges

Curtained hinges are mounted within the cabinet, with the cabinet airtight y'all will not see the hinge. Most modern kitchen utilize concealed hinges.

There are features y'all can observe in a concealed swivel like soft close and greater than 90 degree opening adequacy.

White 42" upper cabinet with goblets, wine glasses, cups and bowls inside with one door open showing the concealed hinges on the inside of the cabinet door.

Curtained hinges usually demand a hole drilled into your cabinet doors to install them. This sounds scary but is actually very simple to do with this inexpensive concealed hinge jig (I use it on most of my chiffonier doors).

After installing a concealed hinge, you can accommodate the cabinet door in 3 directions to get the perfect alignment and reveal. It takes a little bit of practice to get the perfect adjustments, but is well worth the fourth dimension to go perfectly aligned doors.

Attaching a concealed hinge to the back of a cabinet door.

Surface Mount Hinges

Surface mount hinges are installed on the front of the cabinets face up frame. And the hinge is visible when the door is closed. And then the back of the chiffonier is attached to an L shaped hinge.

Surface mountain hinges offer a more traditional expect to your cabinets. They are non as mod, just are coming back in style with the popularity of farmhouse and vintage styles.

Surface mount hinges will not work for frameless cabinets.

Surface mount hinges are quick to install and do not require a hole to exist drilled in the chiffonier door. But they as well accept petty to no adjustment options to tweak the door positioning after install.

Purple painted beadboard cabinet doors with surface mounted hinges above a barnwood shelf behind a washer and dryer.

Picking the Right Inset Hinges

When you shop for hinges for your inset doors, you will need to specify what type of cabinet you are attaching it to. This does non necessarily alter the size of you chiffonier door, simply a frameless inset hinge will not adhere to a face frame cabinet so information technology is definitely important.

Drawing of 3 base cabinets with inset cabinet doors on it.

Information technology tin can be harder to find concealed inset hinges for find face frame cabinets. Yous tin can use surface mount or a bones total mortise swivel (like the hinges property the doors in your business firm), or search specialty hinge retailers.

For my electric current kitchen remodel I wanted face up frame cabinets with inset doors. I got around this hinge problem by using a smaller 1″ face frame and making the inside of the cabinet carcass flush with the inside of the face up frame.

At present the cabinet acts like a frameless cabinet when attaching hinges or drawer slides, but has the appearance of a more traditional confront frame cabinet.

White drawer base cabinet with 3 drawers with inset cabinet doors snd a wood countertop.

Picking the Right Overlay Hinges

When yous shop for overlay cabinet door hinges you volition notice there are many different overlay options.

What is an overlay?

An overlay on face frame or frameless cabinets refer to the amount of the cabinet door that lays on top of the cabinet (or face frame).

A hinge with a ane/2″ overlay volition be 1/ii″ larger than the cabinet opening on all sides, or ane″ wider and i″ taller. Your overlay cannot be larger than your face frame width.

3D sketch of cabinet with 1/2" overlay doors on it.

For face frame cabinets, standard overlay sizes in the US include 1/2″ overlay or ane one/four″ overlay. Merely yous can as well find other sizes like 5/8″ or 1 3/viii″.

The reveal for an overlay cabinet door refers to the amount of infinite between the edge of the door and the edge of the cabinet. If you have a i i/ii″ thick face frame with a 1 i/4″ overlay, it volition go out a one/4″ reveal around the door and a 1/2″ gap betwixt doors.

3D sketch of three cabinets in a row with 1 1/4" overlay showing the reveal between the doors.

For frameless cabinets, you lot can discover full-overlay hinges that will cover the entire cabinet frame (with a 1/viii″ reveal around the outside). Recollect frameless cabinets are typically just 3/iv″ thick (the thickness of the plywood the chiffonier carcass if made from).

3D sketch of full overlay doors on a frameless cabinet.

Measuring for Cabinet Doors

At present that you know what kind of cabinets you have and what kind of hinges you want, it is fourth dimension to start measuring for your cabinet doors!

How to Measure for Inset Chiffonier Doors

To measure for inset chiffonier doors, you lot start need to accept a measurement of the opening of the cabinet. And so yous will subtract the reveal on all 4 sides.

Cabinet Opening Pinnacle – (Reveal 10 2) = Chiffonier Door Height

Chiffonier Opening Width – (Reveal ten two) = Chiffonier Door Width

How much space is needed around inset cabinet doors?

The reveal, or space between a cabinet door and the frame, is an of import chemical element in determining the chiffonier door size.

The reveal for an inset door is a gap. If the gap is likewise small, the door volition rub when being opened. If the gap is too big, it won't look as nice.

The standard inset cabinet door reveal should be 3/32″. That means your chiffonier door needs to be 3/sixteen″ smaller than the chiffonier opening.

Of course, since you lot are DIYing your cabinet doors, you can choose your own reveal. You can make your reveal slightly larger or smaller if you like.

White vanity with inset cabinet doors and two drawers with inset door fronts.

How to Measure out for Overlay Cabinet Doors

To measure for overlay cabinet doors on face frame cabinets, y'all showtime demand to have a measurement of the opening of the chiffonier. And then you will add the overlay amount divers by your hinges on the sides.

Likewise, you can adjust the overlay on the summit/bottom of your cabinet door equally you want. Information technology is non dependent on the type of hinges you lot are using like the side overlay.

Cabinet Opening Height + (Overlay 10 2) = Cabinet Door Height

Cabinet Opening Width + (Overlay x 2) = Cabinet Door Width

Remember, you cannot accept a larger overlay than your face frame width.

You lot will demand to use a smaller overlay on the summit of a cabinet door if you have a base cabinet with a drawer on meridian. Make up one's mind the amount of reveal you want between the cabinet door and drawer front and split the difference between the remaining face frame width between the ii.

Brass hardware on a soft navy kitchen island with 3 cabinets with cabinet doors and drawer fronts.

To measure for full overlay cabinet doors on frameless cabinets, the cabinet door needs to be i/eight″ smaller than the cabinet on all sides. So start take a measurement of the chiffonier opening, then subtract 1/eight″ on all sides.

Cabinet Pinnacle – (ane/eight″ x 2) = Cabinet Door Height

Cabinet Width – (ane/8″ 10 two) = Cabinet Door Width

How to Measure out for Double Cabinet Doors

When yous have a big cabinet, yous will want to use 2 smaller cabinet doors instead of one larger one. This tin can exist a little trickier to measure for.

3D drawing of a large cabinet with a center stile in the middle.

Inset Double Cabinet Doors

For inset double cabinet doors, if yous do not take a center stile (common for frameless cabinets) you will measure the cabinet opening. Then subtract the 3 times the reveal on the width and divide that in half.

This will ensure your center reveal is the same as the outer reveals and not doubled. The cabinet door height calculation does not change.

Cabinet Opening Elevation – (Reveal ten ii) = Cabinet Door Height

Cabinet Opening Width – (Reveal 10 three) ÷ ii = Cabinet Door Width

For inset double cabinet doors with a eye stile, you summate the door size the same equally you would for a single door.

Overlay Double Cabinet Doors

For overlay double chiffonier doors without a center stile, y'all will need to measure the cabinet opening ignoring the centre stile. So you lot demand to determine what yous center reveal will be.

A eye reveal for cabinets should be no smaller than 3/32″ to permit room to open and close the doors without bumping each other and no larger than ane/8″ or it tin can look sloppy.

Cabinet Opening Height + (Overlay x two) = Cabinet Door Height

Cabinet Opening Width + (Overlay 10 2) – Center Reveal ÷ two = Cabinet Door Width

Bank of cabinets around a refrigerator with full overlay double cabinet doors.

For overlay double cabinet doors with a center stile, the measurement will not change if the overlay is minor plenty to let ii doors to overlay on it. If it is not, use the calculations in a higher place to measure for your double doors.

For example, if you have a 1/2″ overlay with a 1 i/2″ wide face frame (and therefore center stile) you take enough space for the cabinet door to overlay 1/2″ on the enter stile with a i/2″ reveal in the center. Then employ the adding for a single overlay cabinet door.

Yet, in the example, the reveal between the double doors volition not be the same as the residuum of the kitchen. The balance of the reveals between the cabinet doors in this example would exist 2″ (ane″ remaining from the overlay on each cabinet door).

With the center stile only i i/two″ thick you cannot create a 2″ reveal, instead you can compress the center reveal and then it looks like there is no center stile and therefore it will await similar the two doors almost touch in the center. To do that use the calculation for the double doors without a center stile above.

How to Mensurate for Corner Cabinet Doors

Corner cabinets with a face frame that is a 45 degree angle to the cabinets to the left or right of information technology are unique when it comes to overlay chiffonier doors with a big (full) overlay.

Kitchen with blue base cabinets and white upper cabinets with full overlay cabinet doors.

If your entire kitchen is set with i 1/2″ face up frame cabinets with 1 one/iv″ overlay hinges, your corner cabinet door will be too big for the space if you calculate information technology the same as all the other cabinet doors.

That is considering you do non have the same clearance around the cabinet door with the sides at a 45 caste bending to the adjoining cabinets.

Instead, you will demand to use a 1/2″ overlay swivel for this chiffonier only. That will give you enough room around the cabinet door to non bump into the other doors.

However, you exercise not want to measure out the cabinet peak with the smaller 1/2″ overlay, otherwise this i door will be shorter than the residual of the cabinet doors.

Corner base cabinet with angled front next to a range.

So when you lot measure for angled corner cabinet doors with a total overlay, employ the following formula:

Cabinet Opening Top + (Balance of the kitchen Overlay 10 2) = Cabinet Door Height

Cabinet Opening Width + (1/2″ Overlay 10 2) = Cabinet Door Width

And just every bit with any DIY, accept extra time to mensurate twice and cutting once.

When I first started adding chiffonier doors to my cabinets, I even tested the fit of the hinges with a bit of plywood that I could attach the concealed hinge to. This immune me to get a complete moving-picture show of where things would lay.

And leave a comment if you have any other questions about measuring for chiffonier doors and what hinges to use.

Happy DIYing!