kimr91•10d ago

Spent 3 hours trying to align a single cabinet door hinge

I was building a set of kitchen cabinets from scratch and thought the doors would be the easy part. Nope. One hinge was off by maybe 2 millimeters and it took me 3 hours of adjusting, stepping back, and starting over before it sat level. I must have loosened and retightened those screws 15 times. Has anyone else had a simple thing like hinges eat up half their day?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.hannah10d ago

And then you're standing there with toothpicks sticking out of a screw hole like some kinda woodworking ninja. I had a similar fight with a bifold closet door once where I thought I'd be done in 20 minutes. Four hours later I had the door off the track, the hinge pins out on the floor, and I was seriously considering just nailing the whole thing shut and calling it a decorative wall. The worst part is when you finally get it level and then you close the door and it makes this awful scraping sound because you tightened a screw too much on the other hinge. So then you gotta loosen everything again and start all over. It's like the universe is testing your patience with little metal rectangles and some screws.

vera_green6910d ago

I read somewhere that hinge alignment is actually the number one complaint among DIY cabinet builders. Apparently it's way more common than people admit. I got into a similar mess with a bathroom vanity last year where the hinge screw stripped on the third try and I had to fill the hole with toothpicks and glue. That whole project took an extra weekend just because of two little hinges.