Can you ID our cabinet doors? If not, would a near-match look ok?

September 19, 2023 9:23 AM

We’d like to have another couple of cabinets added to our kitchen, with doors that match the ones that are already here. Can you ID them?

Photos show: 1. A model number, maybe? 2-4. Door details, including, the trim’s inner edge, which has a small chamfer, and the bottom, where the wood pieces are joined with a finger from one nesting into the other. 5-6. Drawer details including dovetails. 7-8. Overall views.

We moved in 4-5 years ago, and the cabinets were already here. It’s likely they were installed shortly before then. I can’t ask the prior owner about them. He was a woodworker, and he did a lot of the work on the house himself, but the number in the first photo makes me suspect he ordered these. (I found it on the back of a drawer.) I’ve checked Home Depot, Lowe’s, and IKEA, and they all have similar cabinets, but I don’t think any are an exact match.

I haven’t looked at the backs of all the other drawers, or emptied the cabinets to look for more numbers or brand marks. Is there somewhere in particular to look?

If I can’t find the exact match, there are lots of similar cabinets. The new ones would be in the same room, but not side-by-side with the existing ones. Would a near match look objectionably off?

posted by daisyace to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

I can't speak to what they are but in a similar situation I took a cabinet door to a good lumberyard and they ordered what should be a close match (company that made mine no longer around). Not installed yet so we'll see but actually bringing the door in helped match both routering and stain.
posted by leslies at 9:29 AM on September 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

We had this exact issue. I would look around at local cabinet places. Bring a cabinet door if you're able to take one off. If they're unable to find an exact match, they can probably order one that is very similar to what you have.

In our case, we looked around for nearly a year before we found a local retailer that carried what we wanted. This was also for a section of cabinets/countertop that was not side-by-side to the originals, so it would not have been a huge deal if it wasn't an exact match... but we really wanted to find the same ones if we could, and luckily we did.
posted by extramundane at 11:04 AM on September 19, 2023

I think they're his, given that the number is on masking tape (ref. his own numbering system for paint, sequence, etc.), the notch beneath has rough bits, and the dovetail has that contrasting wood? Lovely cabinets!
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:05 AM on September 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yep, those look handmade to me (some tiny imperfections indicate hand-cutting rather than machine-cutting of the notches, to my eye at least). Another local woodworker could likely make more cabinet fronts in the same style (eg. same width frames, thickness of doors), which you could use on whatever sort of cabinet base was affordable and convenient. A carpenter would also be able to identify the type of wood used, and a decent hardware store should be able to match the paint color.
posted by eviemath at 11:11 AM on September 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm a woodworker, and I made cabinets very much like these just this summer. (I didn't round the exterior edges as much, and went with a 90° cut for the inset, which is a bummer in retrospect because it picks up a lot of dust.) I agree that they look hand-made. This style of cabinet is very common. I don't think you'd have a hard time finding a match!
posted by waldo at 11:57 AM on September 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Those doors look hand-made. Any decent cabinetmaker can duplicate them so the design itself will match. You can get them painted to match, but it might be better to get all the doors (old and new) painted so they match perfectly. It probably doesn't matter if the cabinets themselves don't quite match, as long as the doors/drawers fronts do.

If you want to stick with commercially available doors and can't find an exact match (unlikely if the existing doors are hand-made), it would be better to use something different given they are in a different area of the room.
posted by dg at 5:35 PM on September 19, 2023

Those definitely look hand-made. The doors are also a very simple style, which any half-way competent cabinet maker could replicate for you easily.
posted by ssg at 9:31 PM on September 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Good to know, thanks everybody!
posted by daisyace at 10:11 AM on September 20, 2023

The orange bits in your 6th photo look very much like part of Blum drawer slides, which I'd fully expect to find on DIY/custom cabinets, but not from the sort of thing you'd find at Home Depot. Your friendly local cabinetry shop should be able to reproduce these easily. Good luck!
posted by xedrik at 11:51 AM on September 20, 2023