Easy Measurement of New Cabinet Doors on Face Frame Cabinets

Step-by-step instructions for measuring your face frame cabinets for new cabinet doors. Most cabinet companies want you to provide actual door sizes rather than approximate openings. Approximate openings are the actual measurements of the rectangular holes in your cabinets that you want to cover with cabinet doors. You will need to take these measurements and convert them to door sizes before ordering.

Check your cabinet openings to see if they are square. This is easily accomplished by measuring diagonally from corner to corner both ways. If the measurements are the same, then your opening is square. If they aren’t, you’ll want to measure the width at the top and bottom and take the larger of the two. The same goes for height, measure the height on the left and right sides and take the larger of the two. You now have the approximate opening measurements. To make it easy to match your new doors to your existing openings, you may want to sketch your cabinets and number them on paper. This will make mounting the new doors much easier, especially if you have multiple doors that are nearly the same size.

Now that you have the rough opening measurements, what do you do with them? Now you have to make a decision. How much overlap do you want in your face frame cabinets? Note how wide the styles are between the openings. The studs are the vertical strips that cover the edges of the cabinet box. If two doors are next to each other and hinge to hinge, they will both need room to swing open without hitting the other door, even if that door is also open. The amount of clearance depends primarily on the hinge you are using. Check with your hinge manufacturer to find out how much you need. Most hinges will need anywhere from zero clearance to a quarter inch. You’ll also need to see how much clearance there is between the top of the opening and the top of the counter or drawer fronts. Check the bottom for any decorative moldings that may hit the bottom of your doors and adjust accordingly.

Most front-framed overlay doors have a quarter-inch to three-quarter-inch overlap. On rare occasions, you may have overlaps outside of this range, but they do happen and are usually just for a few doors on a weird cabinet. A half inch overlap is probably the most common and the one we will use for our examples. We will also assume that there are no obstacles, such as narrow stiles, drawer fronts, countertop edges, or decorative moldings that will interfere with our half-inch overlap.

For single openings, meaning any opening in your cabinets that has a door that covers the entire opening, take the height and width of the opening and add one inch to the height and width and that will give you a half inch overlap on all four sides. For example, if the rough opening is sixteen inches wide and thirty-two inches high, you will need a door that is seventeen inches wide and thirty-three inches high.

For split openings, meaning any opening in your cabinets that will have two doors side by side covering the entire opening, take the height and add one inch. Take the width and add seven eighths and divide by two. This will give you a little space between the two doors so they don’t bump into each other when you open and close them. You will still have a half inch overlap on all three sides of each door and an eighth gap between the two doors in the center. For example, if your rough opening is thirty-two inches wide and thirty-four inches high, you will need two doors that are sixteen and seven-sixteenths wide and thirty-five inches high. The math can be written as follows:

32 + .875 (7/8) = 32.875 32.875 / 2 = 16.4375 (16 7/16)

As you list the door sizes on the paper, make a note of what type of hinge you are using and also whether the door hinges should be on the right or left side of the door. The left or right note is only important for arched top doors, or if there are finger pulls, special hinge placement, or some other reason to specify right or left. Your typical door with a square profile will not need to be marked left or right.

Final Thoughts: If you have some very tall cabinet doors, you may need to add one or more additional hinges for added durability. This is usually done for doors over three and a half feet high, or forty-two inches. Beware of very wide doors, they may need extra support even if they are not very tall. Another thing to consider on tall doors is the hinge location of those extra hinges. If there are shelves in the cabinet, you’ll want to check and make sure the hinges aren’t sitting at the same level as a shelf.