Cabinet doors that overlap or refuse to stay closed are unsightly and can be a safety hazard. To fix this issue, troubleshoot the cause and fix your cabinet doors with the guide below in four steps or less. The first and simplest step in fixing your cabinet door that won’t close is to see if a screw is loose. Simply open your cabinet door and look at the hinges. Put slight pressure on the underside of the door. Does the door lift up when you do this? If so, you just need a screwdriver to fix it. To fix the cabinet door, life the door into place and gently tighten the screws with a screwdriver until it’s snug against the wood. If the screw turns too freely, the hole may be stripped, and you may need to replace the hinge. Nowadays, most homes have cabinets with European hinges, or large hinges hidden on the inside of the cabinet that are adjustable. If your cabinet doors are overlapping, or if they are edging forward slightly, then you may need to adjust your hinges.

The screw used for adjusting the alignment of a European hinge is the one closest to where the cabinet opens. There are two grooves that form a plus sign across it. Turn the screw counter-clockwise to move the door away from the side where it closes if there is an overlap. Having a gap is one of the most common problems with door hinges, and it's easy to solve. For unsightly gaps, turn the screw clockwise to move the door closer to the shutting edge. Try minute adjustments first. If this doesn't work, try again, making another small adjustment. If neither of the above steps work, you may need to replace your hinges or fix stripped screw locations. Stripped screw locations can be fixed in one of two ways — either you can relocate the hinge and possibly damage the cabinet door, or you can pull out or reinforce the cabinet framing in the area with the stripped screw. You can also try using wood glue to reinforce a stripped screw hole, but this may offer only a temporary solution to your problem.

If you choose to try wood glue, use the appropriate safety precautions when working with the substance, including making sure your work area is well-ventilated. If the screw holes are in good shape, but the hinge itself appears damaged, remove the door carefully and set it somewhere safe. Take the hinge to your local hardware store to find one that matches in screw size and location. To reinstall the hinge, just attach the new one with the same screws.I hate particle board. Particle board (also known as chipboard) is a manufactured sheetIt's made of wood chips, shavings, and even sawdust, all pressed and glued together. Note that there is no actual termite barf in it, even though I like to say that there is. Particle board is flat, and inexpensive, and used all over the place in cabinet construction. kitchen cabinets, for instance, are entirely made of melamine coated I hate the stuff, and will not use it. But I have an advantange, in that I am a hobbyist, so I can build what I want.

pressed for time and money, and so I can understand why they use theLike I said above, it is cheap, and flat, and the melamine coating on some kinds means that they don't need to finish the inside of If you get particle board wet, it will swell up and become soft, andglass garage door albuquerque lose what little structural strength it possesses. andersen storm door home depotThat is one reason95 2 door tahoe for saleIn this particular instance, what Iwindows and doors encinitas ca hate is the poor strength it has for retaining screws. You need to use special screws when fastening something to particle board, but even

then, it isn't really that strong. What I find in the case of kitchen cabinets, is that over time the repeated opening and closing of the cabinet doors leads to the hingsBeing particle board, there is really no strength in the panels to tighten them back up. Also, if you tighten them too far, they will just rip out the fibers, leaving you with a hole in the My kitchen cabinets are old, but I can't afford to replace them rightOne solution I've tried in previous years is to take off the door and move the hinges down a few inches and reattach them. This worked for a while, but then the screws pulled out again. solved that by using a router to excavate a section of the cabinet and glue in a piece of hardwood as a patch. This worked quite well, but it was a big job, a messy job, and it leaves an unsightly patch behind. (Illustrated in the photo.) The other day I had yet another kitchen cabinet hinge pull out, and I needed to fix the situation.

(as an aside: we have four kids, I KNOW we're hard on the cabinets!) This time I came up with a quicker and cleaner way to fix the cabinetI pulled out a section of 5/8" maple dowel, and a matching 5/8" diameter forstner bit. I then sliced off a series of half-inch(that is a rough size estimate, I didn't measure I then carefully drilled a series of holes in the side of the affectedI kept the holes fairly shallow -- I just drilled until the forstner bit was flush with the surface of the cabinet, which is about a half inch or so. Another view showing the cabinet with holes drilled. I then simply glued in a section of dowel into each of those holes. Usually the dowel was pretty snug, so I just tapped it in with a mallet, but you might want to clamp them, to ensure a good fit. Once the glue had dried, I cut the dowels off flush to the surface with a flushcutting saw. Note that you really don't need a perfect finish here, which you will understand when you see the next