Customizing your Kitchen Cabinets

Learn how to convert the doors in your ordinary cabinet into glass inserts with a customized look without having to strain your budget. Just follow the simple steps below.

Things that you would need:

• Cabinet doors. Choose the ones that have a panel insert.
• Painters tape
• Straightedge
• Silicone. Specifically the clear kind
• Protection for your hearing
• Glass sheet. Specifically choose the LEXAN kind. For the thickness, it should be 1/8”
• Carpenters square
• Cutting knife. Choose one that is plastic. Or if there is none, a utility knife will do.
• Safety glasses
• Measuring tape
• Chisel to be used for the wood
• Phillips Screwdriver
• Circular saw

Take off the doors

First thing to do is to uninstall the doors. Once you have taken them off, put them in the plastic bag you have prepared. Make sure that you label them using your painters tape. To make it easier for you when you put it back in later, you can number them accordingly.

Note: This procedure is meant to teach you how to put in LEXAN glass in place of the panels for your cabinet doors. The cabinet should be installed having a surrounding frame around the panel. Refer to the image below.

 

Get the measurement of the doors

Take off the cabinet doors and look closely on the door’s upper part, specifically on the edge, to get the measurement of the depth that you will see there on the groove. In this project, the groove’s depth is ½” and is ¼” wide.

 

Place indicators on the door

Start from the cabinet’s back. Next, using the carpenter’s square; start marking the doors beginning on the inner part of the frame until the groove’s depth. Make sure that all sides are covered.

 

Cutting the panels out

Before anything else, make sure that you put in a gear to protect your eyes. Also make sure that your gear for protecting your hearing is on too. Then, make the door stay in place with the surface that you are working on by using a clamp. Proceed with using your circular saw to precisely cut the lines that you have previously marked working from one depth to the other. After that, the LEXAN glass will come next.

Next thing to do is to mark the LEXAN glass using the measurements obtained from the plywood inserts for fitting. Then for scoring edge, get the straight board to be clamped unto your LEXAN glass. Start using your utility knife on your LEXAN glass and carefully score it halfway. Once your done, snap it off using the scored lines as basis.

 

Silicone application

Put in silicone on the inner part of the door frame. You can also paint the cabinet white first to make it more appealing.

 

 

Installing the LEXAN glass

Put the LEXAN GLASS, inserting it carefully to the frame. Make sure that it is correctly set in place by pressing it securely. Remove any remainders of silicon on the glass and leave it to completely dry off. After that, get the hardware that you have initially taken off and put the doors of the cabinet there to hang.

 

 

 

 

The corners should then be chiseled

Free up the corners by using your wood chisel.

 

Taking off the wood panel

Disassemble the wood panel from the frame of the cabinet by prying it using the wood chisel. Take off the panel and get the measurements.