How to Fix a Poor Cabinet Door

Comment First

One of the primary rules of home improvement is simple: conservation. If something is broken, you'll want to fix it instead of replace it. This is true for most of your household items, whether you're talking about an old bed or a faulty cabinet door. Rather than go through the trouble to replace a broken down cabinet door, it's important to see if you can fix it first. You might be surprised how often you can.

When you're working with a cabinet door - or a door of any kind, for that matter - you'll be focusing on hinges. A door hinge essentially joins two structures of wood together to form the opening and closing we recognize as a door. If there is simply a problem with the wood itself, your woodworking skills will come in handy, but you won't have to worry about the hinges. If the problem in your cabinet door rests in how it actually swings, you'll be focusing on the hinges.

Take a look at the hinges first: what appears to be the problem? If there are loose screws, you can tighten them right away. Once you test-swing the door a couple of more times, you should be able to tell if this fixed the problem. Many broken hinges will continue to remain loose even after the screws are tightened. This implies a problem with the hinge itself. For example, if the screws are tightly locked into the wood, but the hinge is not tightly locked to the screws, you'll need to repair the hinge holes that the screws are attached to.

How can you do this? You can try to take out the screws and fill in the holes with glue, reinforcing them with small pieces of wood like toothpicks. This essentially helps re-build the loose area of the hinge so that you can re-insert the screws after the glue has dried. If there is still a problem, it might be with the quality of the wood itself. You might need to move the hinge up or down to a stronger area of the wood, though you may also want to consider the possibility of replacing the doors altogether.

Of course, since one of the primary rules of home improvement is to conserve, make sure you properly diagnose the real problem with your hinges by exploring the various possibilities first. If at first you don't succeed, try again.

Photo Credits: Greg_e

This post involves:

door hinge, doors, glue, hinges, holes, home improvement, household items, loose area, loose screws, pieces of wood, small pieces, woodworking skills

... and focuses on:

Furniture, Handyman, How to Fix

Posted by Fix Handyman on August 18, 2009 in Furniture, Handyman, How to Fix