corner cabinet

Jon Reichert · Post by **Jon Reichert** » Sun, Oct 14 2007, 12:52AM

Working on a frameless corner base cabinet with an angled front. Looking from the top, the two sides have front edges at 90 deg. This is good - but I can't seem to apply a door to this cabinet. The door seems to run into the sides. The door actually needs to be set away from the top and deck by 3/4\" I think. It will have other cabinets to it's left and right sides as it is apart of a run along a wall that turns 90 deg. Anybody have a suggestion on how to apply a door to this cab? What are some solutions in the way of hinges and construction settings? Can this be integrated into a run with drawer cabinets on either side of the corner cab and still maintain the typical 1/8 gap btwn all doors and drawers? I guess there are several design challenges here....Hmmmmmm. Any help greatly appreciated.

DanEpps · Post by **DanEpps** » Sun, Oct 14 2007, 6:32AM

Jon

Take a look at this thread on corner cabinets and see if it helps.

If you do a search in the forum using \"corner\" as the search term, there are 427 threads concerning corner cabinets.

Chris Robinson · Post by **Chris Robinson** » Mon, Oct 15 2007, 4:53PM

Thanks Dan for bringing that thread back up.

Jon, I build frameless and ran into similar issues recently. One thing to remember is that unless you subtract your material thickness from the left and right front sides, your side panels will be .75\" too long and protrude past the adjacent cabinets.

I ran into the door reveal issue with a customer a few months ago. I was using Blum 45degree hinges and followed their manual on sizing the door for use with that hinge. So, the door is actually about 6mm narrower than the actual opening. I verified this with their tech dept. From the front, the reveal remains consistent but if the cabinet is lighted, you will see a faint glow around the door. That is where this one customer poopooed all over me. No matter the amount of drawings, explaining geometry could convince them that I had sized the door correctly. (Let me quote the customer, \"Now, I ain't no cabinet maker and don't want to tell you how to do yer job, but you don't know what yer do'in.\"

Anyway, in 7 years, only 2 customers have complained. You can get away with sizing the door to equal the opening and then use the hinge's horizontal adjustment to center the door but it will max it's travel out. The only other recommendation I heard was to glue in a finished strip that was 5mm thick to hide the small gap.

I found the hard way that if you size the door wider than the opening, you will more than likely touch the adjacent doors or not open all the way after the hinge cranks out as you open.

Also note that while in the cabinet door editor, the door doesn't take the correct size until you leave the door editor. So, no matter what reveals you have entered when you place the door, it will be overhanging the sides and will show the incorrect size. Return to Main Screen and it will be correct.

I hope this helps.

Chris

Jon Reichert · Post by **Jon Reichert** » Thu, Oct 18 2007, 2:00PM

Thanks Chris for the helpful info and example...but I'm stilll struggling with this corner cab. I think i'll just have to put it down on paper for now to show the customer what I'm doing all this time. Part of the learning curve I guess. Still trying to figure out how to get this door to work. My corner cab is flanked on the L and R walls by pencil drawers (the whole unit together makes a desk ands supports a counter) the pencil drawers are only 4\" high mounted under the counter and also attached to the corner cab. The rest of the sides of the corner are exposed leaving a very weird looking undersized door attached to the corner cab. So it's appearance vs functionality. Need clearance at the top for the pencil drawers but below I want it to cover. I don't want to make angled front edges of sides but I don't think there is any other way at this point. Then there is the whole mess of trying to bring it to the room editor and to the drawing editor. Neither of which I could do since the other objects i wanted to attach are not lining up with the corner cab sides. Ho hum. Looks like your example cab is face frame or angled front edge sides?

Jon

Michael Yeargain · Post by **Michael Yeargain** » Thu, Oct 18 2007, 4:22PM

Jon,

Can you draw a picture of what you want? Use a paint program if you have to. I want to help if I can.

DanEpps · Post by **DanEpps** » Thu, Oct 18 2007, 5:35PM

Here are a couple of corner desks. The first is geared toward computers with large ventilation openings in the back and wire grommets under the monitor/printer shelf.

The second is more of a general purpose work area with plenty of storage.

Hope these give you some ideas.

Rob Frenette · Post by **Rob Frenette** » Thu, Oct 18 2007, 5:50PM

Hi Jon

What if you attached an applied finished panel to each side of the angled corner cabinet and then attach your pencil drws to the finished panels. Would that look better? If the corner cabinet extends above the pencil drws and counter you could set the pencil drws back enough so that the counter is set back slightly from the front edge of the finished panels.
If you could even submit a rough drawing of what you are trying to achieve we could probably come up with a solution for you.
If you want to try this all you have to do when applying the door to the corner cabinet is give a left and right reveal to where it says Hinge side reveal and open side reveal. Try 1 inch and see how that looks. If you extend the applied ends about 5/8 past the left and right ends of the corner cabinet that should look okay.

Good luck

Rick Palechuk · Post by **Rick Palechuk** » Sat, Oct 20 2007, 1:35AM

Hi Jon, here's an example of a corner cabinet system that we would normally use. It's displayed as uppers, but can be used in base cabinets too. The hinge we use is configuration # 9 in the Blum manual. The corner cab gables would be angle cut on the table saw and real wood edge tape applied. HTH

Jon Reichert · Post by **Jon Reichert** » Sat, Oct 20 2007, 7:35AM

Wow thanks a lot for the brain storming. below are two images of what I'm doing. It's the sides of the corner cabinet that are throwing me off here - I am not able to hide 26\" of my 30\" tall sides because I'm only attaching 4\" tall pencil drawers to the top L+R sides of the corner base. So I have these awkward looking sides on the corner base exposed. The sides of the corner base are not mitered and the door is sized to fit same width as the opening. The front of the door isn't matching the line I want either. (imagine installing a counter on this - the corner door would appaer inset further than the drawer faces.

So I'm trying to solve these three problems:
1. More visually appealing corner base sides - Possible angled?
2. creating a door that covers and operates correctly in this space
3. The line of the face of the door flows with the pencil drawer faces

I recently did a mock up with angled sides for the corner base. That seemed to work ok - but I think it will be more work to produce. It also seems the door may have to overlay more than a hinge will allow. Any way here are some pictures. The plan view is in orthographic mode. Thanks for the help!

DanEpps · Post by **DanEpps** » Sat, Oct 20 2007, 7:53AM

Why not make the door so that the top is lower than the adjacent skirts?

Also, you can easily overcome the issue with the pencil drawers by using multiple cabinets in the sides--one with the the others without the 4\" skirt.

DanEpps · Post by **DanEpps** » Sat, Oct 20 2007, 8:08AM

Here's a quick and dirty of what I'm talking about. It is far from complete but you can get the idea.

Rick Palechuk · Post by **Rick Palechuk** » Sat, Oct 20 2007, 9:54AM

Hey Jon, this is the way I would tame the beast. Blum has a 5/8 overlay angled hinge. I would bevel the gables. Door size = inside opening+1 1/4 \" less door gap (if using two doors). Adjust fillers accordingly, and watch for hardware collision.

Chris Robinson · Post by **Chris Robinson** » Sat, Oct 20 2007, 10:57AM

Jon,

Take a look at this assembly. You have to set the door forward from the face of the cabinet .25\". To do this, you will have to install the hinge plate closer to the front edge, about 32mm from the front, I think, to get the proper distance. You could also take a piece of material that you are making the interiors from, about 2.5 - 3\" wide and long enough to fit from the inside deck to inside top. Miter one edge to 45degrees and attach to the hinge side of the interior. The bevel makes it run perpendicular to the door and gives you a place to attach a standard 120deg hinge. You would have to move the hinge plate forward about 1/4\". I think this gives you the look that you are going for.

Please note that the use of a mitered block to attach hinge plates to probably breaks a dozen rules of Euro cab procedure. But it's simple.

I hope this helps a little.

Chris Robinson

Peter Walsh · Post by **Peter Walsh** » Sat, Oct 20 2007, 11:13AM

Jon,
You mentioned trying to improve the looks of the project vis a vis the large sides of the corner cab.
It strikes me you have a proportional problem established by the thin horizontal lines of the cabinets on either side of the corner cabinet mass.

I would play with changing the corner cab so that the its toe kick size was reduced to only about 60% the length and width of the upper cab section and increase the toe kick height to about 50% of the total corner cab height and see if that doesn't dramatically change the visuals and create more of a pedestal effect.

Just a thought.

regards,

Jon Reichert · Post by **Jon Reichert** » Sat, Oct 20 2007, 10:29PM

Rick - I like the example you show - i am slowly accepting the idea of beveling the front sides so the door can overlay. (I guess you can't represent this in ecabs though) Didn't want to go in that direction since I'll have to add something to the inside sides so there won't be this sharp edge when you open the door. It's just a weird cabinet. Sort of off process you might say. So I think i'll just opt for the bevel front edges and then add in the blocks. Fortunately I only have 2 of these to build.
Why do you suggest 5/8\" overlay instead of full 3/4? Not enough clearance? I'll probably use a standard 120 deg hinge like Chris suggested. That could work. Thanks