Thread: Kitchen cupboard doors to match existing doors

Hello all!

Well this is my first post (Welcome Zoe!! Why thankie!)

Hehe, anyway - this will no doubt be the first of many posts to this fabulous forum, I have just spent 3 hours reading many existing threads and have already picked up so many hints and tips - it is truely a credit to all who contribute.

So here is what I am hoping to get some help with.

In my existing kitchen (which I have been told is a mixture of Tassie Oak and Spotted Gum), I have three sets of shelves which I would love to have doors put on. They are right next to (and above) the stove top and are pretty useless for putting things in because of oil splatter and so are, at the moment, wasted space.

Here is my dilemma - I have had a quote from a local kitchen guy, who happened to be the only guy who could correctly identify the timber from which my cupboard doors were made, and made for us a large storage cupboard - but he wanted $320 for two doors! I am wondering if this is reasonable?

Now these doors need to be made from Spotted Gum and have the following dimensions:

2 doors

approx 270mm x 790mm

1 door

approx 270mm x 725mm

I have attached some piccie so the routing can be seen - from what I can telling it's a pretty standard pattern - but then I wouldn't really know! It looks fairly familiar to me though..

I was just hoping for some ifeedback on the usual cost of having such things done and if I would possibly get it done cheaper anywhere in the Campbelltown/Camden area?

Thanks I hope to hear from someone soon!

(now on to my decking posts! yeeehaaaaw!)

Welcome to the forum - a fount of knowledge.

Lovely timber and from pics looks to me as though he picked right. That price is OK for that type of work with real timber too - in fact at $320 for the two I reckon it's good price. Since he knows his timber that's a good sign too IMO. He will no doubt have mentioned that however much he tries the match will never be spot on - timber just varies too much and ages at different rates in UV etc.

Hiya Bloss,

Thanks so much for your feedback. I wasn't aware that it was such a good price, and yep, they are for solid doors. I was actually really impressed with the colour match he was able to make with the extra cupboards he put in for us - you can barely notice that they were put in at a much later time - the door of the kitchen faces full west too - so there is a considerable amount of sun-fade I am thinking. We did take off one of the existing doors and gave it to him to take away for matching, so this would have made it easier I'm thinking

Thanks again though - and thanks for the compliment on the timber It was a nice surprise for us too when we discovered that the kitchen is made from an "okay" type of timber.. another nice suprise was that we apparently have real (non-floating) Jarrah floor boards (Sorry, I just love that smiley and had to put him in somewhere!)

Thanks so much!

Zoe.

welcome to the forum - great to have you on board.

Your kitchen maker's price seems OK to me (period style kitchen designer here) - there may be cheaper doors 'off the shelf but yours look like they may be custom.

So, a maker will have to source, inspect and buy suitable timber, machine it to suit the job, glue and fill the timber in preparation for making the bevelled panel inserts, then assemble the doors, sand them, then polish them .... all to precisely match what you already have .... that's no easy task.

Even if he finds doors from a supplier that are the same, he has to inspect and pay for them and then supply them to you.

If his price includes fitting the doors then I feel it is most reasonable, as he will have to come out, machine your existing housings to fit the hinges, then put the doors onto your cabinet and adjust them to ensure they fit. If you want matching pulls, he will supply and fit (or just fit) those. All of these things add up to several hours of work, plus the cost of the doors.

If I am understanding the project correctly, this will still leave a gap where the rangehood is - an alternative would be to replace the rangehood with a quality inbuilt one (or cover the existing rangehood) and make the entire overhead section look like cabinets.

This is along the lines of what I mean

Thanks so much for your idea seriph,

I am thinking now that it's not such a bad price afterall - and your great picture of the panels covering the exhast is a wonderful idea. But the extra cupboards are an even better idea.

I'm concerned though, with the new exhaust fans - how exactly do they work if they don't have the 'chimney' (excuse my lack of technical terms)? Or do they have one, just covered up?

Thanks agin - I am in love with this forum

hi again - yes they still have ducting, at least the ones that vent to the outside or roof space do - the difference with making an enclosed facade is that you could also fabricate "U" shaped shelving to go around the duct and optimize storage - I mainly sketched up that idea so as to streamline the area, which I figured was what you were aiming for