Need special hinges

Jan 09, 2010 24 Replies

Need some special hinges, possibly some Euro-style ones.



Problem: Installed a kitchen cabinet that is behind a piece of door trim. (There was no other way to do it.) There's just enough room (~1") between the cabinet and trim to mount the door, but not enough room for the door to swing with a regular hinge.



The contractor who did most of the other work on this project told me to look for special hinges that would move the door laterally before swinging it to clear this obstruction. So far, I've had no luck trying to locate it calling around locally. I even called Rockler and asked them. Closest thing they have are "flipper" hinges, but those won't work here.



Anyone know of such hinges? I'm guessing they would be articulated to slide the door sideways first before swinging.



Any help much appreciated to get this project finished.



More precisely here:

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On 1/8/2010 5:59 PM Jim spake thus:

Well, you da man. Or at least my first reaction was "you da man!" when I saw that page. At least until I saw the price for the hinges that might work

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: $150 a set! No frigging way.

But you still the man for finding that so fast. What I wonder is why the guy I talked to--*at Rockler*--said they didn't have any hinges that would solve my problem. I explained the situation clearly.

So now I'm scratching my head, doodling and wondering whether a multi-leaf hinge (like this:

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might work.

A sketch/top view of the problem would help, I can't visualize what the problem is.

On 1/8/2010 6:37 PM hr(bob) snipped-for-privacy@att.net spake thus:

Well, since folks seem to take such a dislike to my posting SMALL PICTURES here, let me try to explain:

Cabinet is installed against a wall. Directly in front of the cabinet front is a piece of door trim nailed to the wall. There's about an inch between the edge of the door trim and the front of the cabinet. Just enough room to mount a door on the front of the cabinet (door on front of the cabinet, not flush with frame), but not enough room for the door to swing open without hitting the door trim. Got it?

I don't think a hinge will solve this. You need a narrower cabinet to move the door away from the trim so it can open. Then you need a filler to fill the space between the cabinet and the wall.

Why can't you hinge the door on the otherside.

If it has to hinge this side the cabinet should have been a little narrower and a filler strip added.

If someone designed this for you and supplied the cabinets you may be able get them to return the cabinet and get the right one.

This happened to my in-laws when Home Depot measured at the counter height for a run of cabinets and not at the top of the cabinets. Well one wall was out of plumb the wrong way and the top cabinet just was not going to fit. Home Depot took back the cabinet and ordered the correct one.

Also those hinges don't look like they will work. I don't think you have enough room for the door to move "out" before it slides. It looks like you need about 2.5" of clearance before it starts to slide to side.

Found the specs, you need about 10"

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On 1/8/2010 7:16 PM Cliff Hartle spake thus:

Because the door trim would hit the edge of the door and prevent it from opening.

Cabinets are from Ikea. What we got is what we got.

Obviously, if they were custom cabinets they (homeowner and contractor who did most of the work) would have come up with another design. As it was, two base cabinets and an all-in-one compact kitchen unit filled the space exactly.

Hinge at the top (or bottom, depending on the cabinet), like an overhead bin?

Maybe their offset hinge...

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Could you...

  1. rip off an inch or so from the door edge

  1. afix offcut to cabinet

  2. hinge remainder of door to offcut

My recommendation if the door style allows it, is to cut a 1" strip off the hinge side of the door, permanently affix that to the base cabinet, and re-hinge the door that 1" over. Not as elegant as some $150 exotic hinges, but simple and effective and if done with concealed back mount hinges probably not very noticeable.

If there is another cabinet door right next to it, you may be able to turn the two cabinet doors into a bi-fold door with folding door hinges connecting them in the middle.

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You would need to be sure that the other set of hinges was able to handle the additional weight of a bi-fold door.

--Betsy

Lowes and Home Cheepo have some strange cabinet hinges. Typically along the aisle, in pull out plastic drawers, or tip out drawers. USually plastic wrapped.

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such typical hinge.

Well, since usenet is text-only protocol, most won't see 'em anyway...

As others said, what you really needed was to have used a 2" narrower cabinet w/ a filler strip (and for most satisfactory results in the long run probably should still consider that option--or the probably not-so-good modify the current cabinet/door).

I don't have a link for a less-expensive hinge, but you might try Woodworkers' Hardware (MN). Don't recall if url is

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or some variant but a google would undoubtedly find it. They've the largest selection of stuff I'm aware of outside the very high priced spread such as previously found.

--

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One such typical hinge. ...

Which is nothing but a standard euro-style hinge that won't do anything for the OP's stated problem.

On 1/9/2010 5:52 AM dadiOH spake thus:

Yes. If all else fails, that will probably be Plan B. (Would amend your step 3 to "hinge remainder of door to cabinet", though.)

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