Face Framed Cabinets: Increase Overlay to Reduce Reveal

Face Framed Cabinets: Increase Overlay to Reduce Reveal

by | Mar 29, 2022 | Blog

“How can I make my cabinet doors bigger?” “I want the doors to almost touch”.  If you’ve asked these questions and thought you need to rip out your cabinets to achieve these goals – stop and read this blog that will teach you How-To!

Increasing cabinet door sizes to reduce the amount of frame showing is an easy process that any homeowner can tackle. Older framed kitchens usually show a lot of the cabinet face frame when the doors are closed. Many homeowners seeking a more modern look want to increase the size of the cabinet doors so that less frame is showing.

Key Terms for Face Framed Cabinets

Before we go through the steps to hide cabinet frames with larger doors, we’ll review some important terms around increasing your cabinet door size to reduce the amount of reveal.

Reveal

The amount of face frame showing when the cabinet door is closed, sometimes called by DIY newbies the “gaps” around your doors. Reducing the amount of reveal is the goal for a sleeker, more modern cabinet look.

A picture of a bathroom vanity showing outdated cabinet doors and an arrow pointing to the cabinet hinge.
The arrow indicated the large reveal on these framed cabinets.

Door Overlay

The amount of frame that is covered by the cabinet doors is known as the overlay of the door on the cabinet frame. In older cabinets, the overlay is typically ½” meaning the door overlays the cabinet frame by 1/2’” on all 4 sides.

A bathroom vanity without cabinet doors with red highlight around the cabinet openings showing where the doors should sit when installed.
The red outline indicated the placement of half overlay doors on this vanity.

Hinge Overlay

Concealed soft close hinges are made for specific overlays. The overlay of your cabinet doors needs to match the overlay of the hinge you are using. Manufacturers make soft close concealed hinges in a variety of overlays, the most common being ½”, ¾”, 1”, 1 1/4”, 1 9/16”. The overlay measured for the hinge side of the door needs match the overlay of the hinge you will use. It helps to think of a door as having 2 sides; the hinge side and the handle side. The overlay on the hinge side needs to match the hinge, while the overlay on the handle side can vary depending on application.

A cabinet door divided into two with a vertical line showing labels for the hinge side and handle side of the door.
Handle vs. hinge side on a cabinet door.

Frame Width

The first step in determining the size of your new door is to measure the width of the face frame that the door will sit on. The width of the frame will determine how much overlay you can add to a cabinet opening and how much frame you can cover. A typical full overlay is 1/8” to ¼” less than the frame width.

A closeup of a measuring tape against a cabinet frame.
Measuring your face frame width will determine the overlay of door you can measure.

Inside Frame Dimensions

Also referred to as “cabinet opening” or “ICW – Inside Cabinet Width”, these measurements are taken by measuring the width and height of the cabinet opening from the inside edge of the cabinet frame. Make sure these measurements are exact to the nearest 1/16 of an inch.

Inside Cabinet Frame Width
Inside Cabinet Frame Height

Measuring for Larger Cabinet Doors in 5 Steps

Step 1: Measure Frame Width

Measure the width of the frame that the door will mount to on all four sides. The frame width will most likely be the same on all sides, but it is important to double check.

In some cases, a single frame may have a left door and a right door mounted to it, this is known as a “shared frame”. In this case, each door will share half of the width of the frame. For example, if the frame is 3” wide, each door is allocated 1-1/2” of that frame.

Step 2: Determine Hinge Overlay

Using your frame width, you can now select the correct hinge overlay for your project. A good rule of thumb is to select the hinge overlay that is a minimum of 1/8” less than your frame width. For example, if your frame width is 1 1/8” your ideal overlay hinge would be 1”. This allows for a 1/4” gap between doors which gives enough clearance for the doors to open without touching.

Watch: How to Measure for Full Overlay Cabinet Doors on 1 1/2″ Face Frames

Step 3: Calculate Door Width

Use the hinge overlay and the Inside Cabinet Dimensions to determine the door width.

For a single door cabinet with an opening with of 12” and the 1” overlay described above, the door calculations would be as follows;

12” opening + 1” overlay on hinge side of door + 1” overlay on handle side of door = 14” door width

For a double door cabinet (large opening with 2 doors on it) with an opening of 30”, the math is;

30” divided by 2 doors = 15”.

15” plus 1” overlay on hinge side only of door = 16”.

16” less 1/16” = 15-15/16” wide door for each door (you will order a quantity of two)

Why deduct 1/16”? Deducting 1/16” from the handle side of the door after the overlay is added ensures that the doors won’t touch in the middle when they are closed. By deducting 1/16” from each door you are actually allowing for a 1/8” gap between the doors which is ideal.

Step 4: Calculate Door Height

The height of your doors depends on the amount of frame you want to cover. You can choose to add the same amount of overlay to the height of the doors as the width, or you can make the height overlay whatever looks best for your cabinet.

In this example, the height of the cabinet face from the underside of the countertop to the bottom of the frame was 25-1/4”. Allowing for a 3/16” gap between the top of the door and the underside of the countertop meant the doors were made at 25-1/16” high to completely cover the face frame.

An image showcasing a full overlay cabinet door on a face framed cabinet.
A visual demonstration of door height on framed cabinet to cover the cabinet face frame.

Drawer Above Door

When a base cabinet has both a door and a drawer front, ensure that you allow for a minimum 1/8” gap between the top of the door and the bottom of the drawer face.

The width of drawer fronts should be calculated in the same way as doors. Although there is no hinge to match overlay to, by using the same overlay as the doors you will ensure a consistent amount of reveal throughout the project. Remember, if a drawer is located above a door, the width of the drawer and door should be the same so that they line up.

Step 5: Double Check

Before spending hundreds, maybe thousands on new cabinet doors, its important to double check your measurements to ensure that you are achieving the look you want and that your newly sized doors will fit properly. Doors that are slightly undersize may be workable, but doors that are too large may be unusable.

The best method for double checking requires green painter’s tape and patience. With the existing cabinet doors removed from your cabinet, use your painter’s tape to layout the newly measured width and height of the cabinet doors as you have measured. Taking the time to do this ensures that your doors are sized correctly to cover the amount of face frame desired, while ensuring they won’t overlap or touch each other when closed. This can take a bit of time in a large kitchen but is time well spent compared to the cost of doors that were measured incorrectly.

Painter's tape covers the face frames of a bathroom vanity as a double check of dimensions prior to ordering.
Double checking your measurements with painter’s tape is a great visual check!

In Conclusion

Achieving a full overlay look on a framed cabinet is an easy DIY project that is doable by any homeowner with a little how-to knowledge and some patience. Correct measurements are the key to success, so be sure to double check your measurements for accuracy!

An updated bathroom vanity complete with full overlay doors on face framed cabinets.
After: Full Overlay Cabinet Doors on an updated bathroom vanity.
Get Help from a Real Cabinet Door Refacing Expert

How to Create a Pot and Pan Stack of Drawers

How to Create a Pot and Pan Stack of Drawers

by | Feb 18, 2021 | Blog

A common complaint about kitchens is the lack of drawer storage. Many builder’s grade kitchens only have a single stack of 4 drawers, and often these are not large enough to store large items like pots and pans.

Installing a wide pot and pan stack of drawers in an existing ‘doored’ base cabinet is a simple yet highly effective way to increase the usable storage space in a kitchen. Refacing your kitchen is a great time to not only replace your cabinet doors but also to increase the functional storage space with pot drawers.

What is a pot and pan drawer stack?

A pot and pan stack is typically made up of three drawers, two 10” high drawers at the bottom, and one 4” high drawer at the top. The deep drawers typically house your frequently used pots and pans while the shallower top drawer is for utensils or cutlery.

We’ve summarized into a few simple steps everything you need to know to create a pot and pan stack of drawers.

1. Find the Best Cabinet to Convert into Drawers

  • Pot and pan stacks are best if they are not next to a corner. Select a base cabinet that is central in the kitchen. A double door cabinet in a frameless kitchen is a great spot to convert to pot and pan drawers as it will offer a width that is typically anywhere from 24” to 36” wide.
  • In a framed kitchen, look for a cabinet that does not have a stile or frame running between the two doors. The stiles can sometimes be removed, but in many kitchens, they do provide support for the weight of the countertop.

2. Plan your Drawer Layout

  • Determine how many drawers you would like to install in your base cabinet based on your needs and how you use your storage.
  • The most common layout for drawers is 2 boxes at 10” high and one at 4” high.
  • You may find a two-drawer stack works best with two extra deep drawers.
  • If you want to store a lot of baking sheets or utensils you might want to consider one 10” deep drawer with three 4” deep drawers above it.

3. Measure the Inside Cabinet Width (ICW)

  • The ICW on a frameless kitchen is the inside width from wall to wall of the cabinet box.
  • On a framed kitchen the ICW is the width of the opening from the inside edge to inside edge of the framed opening.
  • The Inside Cabinet Width will determine the width of the drawer box required, as the drawer box width needs to be less than the ICW. The reduction in width depends on the type of drawer slide being used.
  • For Blum Soft-close Tandem Slides that mount underneath the drawer box, 3/8” is deducted from the ICW to determine the overall drawer width.
  • Side mount slides typically require a ½” deduction from each side, or 1” overall.
A rendering of a kitchen cabinet with a label.

4. Measure the Cabinet Depth

  • Measure the depth of the cabinet from the back of the cabinet box to the front. Most base cabinets are 24” deep. When measuring check for obstructions in the back of the cabinets. In some cases, builders may run electrical or plumbing through the back of cabinets and you may need to reduce your drawer depth to clear the obstructions.
  • The standard drawer box depth within a 24” base cabinet is approximately 21.6”.

5. Measure for Drawer Fronts

  • Armed with your drawer box layout, measure for the height of the drawer fronts first.
  • Let’s use an example of a 30” tall base cabinet with a single 6” high drawer face and two doors 24” tall. To replace the two 24” tall doors you could order 2 fronts at 12” tall, right? Wrong. The drawer fronts need a gap between them, so they don’t touch when closed. Reduce the height of each drawer face by 1/8” allowing for a gap between faces. The 12” fronts should be ordered at 11-7/8” high and the top drawer face is actually 5-7/8” high.
  • The width of your drawer fronts should be 1/8” less than the outside width of your cabinet on a frameless kitchen.
  • On a framed kitchen, keep your drawer front overlay consistent with the rest of your doors and drawer fronts.
A rendering of a cabinet showing measurements.

6. Choose a Matching Drawer Box Height for the Drawer Face

  • The height of your drawer box should a minimum of 1-3/4” shorter than the height of your drawer face to allow the undermount drawer slides to clear the box mounted below and allow for the drawer front to overlay the cabinet face.
  • Back to our example above, for the 11 7/8” drawer faces, order the 9-1/16” (230mm) high drawer boxes, and for the 5 7/8” drawer front, order the 4 1/8” (105mm) drawer box.

7. Order your New Dovetail Drawer Boxes

With the measurements you took using the steps above, you are now ready to order drawer boxes using our online order form.

  • Step 1: Select how you measured; Inside Cabinet Width or Exact Drawer Box Width
    • Note – If ICW is selected we will deduct the necessary amount for our Blum Undermount Slides. If you are supplying your own slides please let us know Make, Model and Size in the Notes section.
  • Step 2: Enter the width, in inches.
  • Step 3: Select drawer box height from our standard list of sizes
  • Step 4: Select depth from our list of standard sizes
  • Step 5: Select hardware
    • When ordering drawer boxes, you have the option of adding Blum Undermount Soft Close slides to your drawers. We recommend Blum as these high quality slides will last a lifetime and installation is easy. If you are supplying your own slides please let us know the manufacturer, model and size so that we can prepare the drawers correctly.

Enhance your kitchen with a pot and pan drawer stack

By tackling these simple steps, you can enhance your kitchen makeover by adding function with additional drawer space for easy access or storage of large items like pots and pans. Quality built wooden dovetail boxes with soft close slides will give your kitchen that new-again feeling, and last for many meals to come.