YepCalc

Cabinet Door Calculator

Size overlay cabinet doors from the openings. Enter each opening, the overlay, and whether it takes 1 door or a pair, and the calculator finds the door sizes. For shaker or raised panel doors, it also gives the cut list for the stiles, rails, and panels.

Openings

Opening 1

Enter Width and Height to include this opening.

Add each cabinet opening, measured inside the face frame.

Door fit

Default: 1/2 in (common on face-frame cabinets)

How far each door covers the frame on every side. Full overlay on a face frame is often 1 1/4 in. Match the overlay of your hinges.

Default: 1/8 in

The space between the two doors of a pair. Used only for openings with 2 doors.

Shaker frame

Default: 2 1/4 in

The finished width of the stiles (sides) and rails (top and bottom).

Default: 3/8 in

How deep the panel groove is. On most rail and stile bit sets, the rail tongues are the same length.

Default: 1/16 in

Taken off the panel's width and height so it fits the grooves. Solid wood panels need more room across the grain.

Result

Enter the width and height of an opening to see the door sizes.

How to calculate cabinet door size

An overlay door covers the edge of the opening on all four sides, so the door is the opening plus twice the overlay:

Door width = opening width + 2 × overlay

Door height = opening height + 2 × overlay

A pair of doors covers the frame only on the two outer sides and meets in the middle with a small gap, so each door of a pair is:

Door width = (opening width + 2 × overlay − gap between doors) ÷ 2

For a 15 × 30 in opening with a 1/2 in overlay, the door is 16 × 31 in. For a 30 in wide opening with a pair of doors and a 1/8 in gap, each door is (30 + 1 − 1/8) ÷ 2 = 15 7/16 in wide. That's the same as the opening width ÷ 2 − 1/16 in + 1/2 in in the Cabinetdoors.com guide to measuring for 1/2 in overlay doors.

Stile and rail cut list

A five-piece door has two stiles (the sides), two rails (the top and bottom), and a panel. The stiles run the full height of the door, and the rails fit between them with a tongue at each end that goes into the stile groove:

Stile length = door height

Rail length = door width − 2 × stile and rail width + 2 × groove depth

Panel width = rail length − panel clearance

Panel height = door height − 2 × stile and rail width + 2 × groove depth − panel clearance

For a 16 × 31 in door with 2 1/4 in stiles and rails and a 3/8 in groove, the rails are 16 − 4 1/2 + 3/4 = 12 1/4 in long, and the panel is 12 3/16 × 27 3/16 in with 1/16 in clearance. The calculator uses the same width for the stiles and the rails, and the groove depth as the length of each rail tongue.

A door marked Too small has no room for a panel inside its stiles and rails. Its door size is still shown, so you can make it a slab door or use narrower stiles and rails.

How to measure cabinet openings

Openings

On a face-frame cabinet, measure the opening inside the face frame. On a frameless cabinet, measure inside the cabinet sides, top, and bottom. Enter the width and height of each opening the door or drawer front covers.

The calculator uses one overlay on all four sides. Where doors or drawers side by side share one frame stile, the overlay on that side can be smaller. In that case, add or subtract the difference from the opening width you enter.

Overlay

To find the overlay of an existing door, close it and mark the cabinet along the hinge-side edge of the door. Open it and measure from the mark to the edge of the opening. The door is bigger than the opening by twice that amount.

On face-frame cabinets, 1/2 in is the most common overlay, and full overlay doors that cover nearly all of the face frame often use 1 1/4 in. On frameless cabinets, the doors cover the edges of the cabinet sides, and the Metric default of 16 mm comes from the middle of Blum's table for a standard 110° hinge on a 0 mm mounting plate. Blum lists 17.5 mm (11/16 in) as a common overlay for frameless cabinets. Match the overlay to the cabinet side thickness and to the hinges you use. The hinge has to be made for that overlay.

Stiles, rails, and grooves

Stile and rail bit sets usually cut a 3/8 in deep groove and rail tongues of the same length. If your rail tongues are a different length from the groove, enter the tongue length as the Groove depth. CMT's guide to panel door construction, for example, uses 7/16 in tenons. For Metric, check the groove depth in your bit instructions. Entering more than the real depth makes the rails too long, and the joints won't close.

Shaker and raised panel doors

The panel clearance is taken off the panel's width and height so it fits into the grooves. The default 1/16 in works for plywood and MDF panels, which hardly move. A solid wood panel moves across the grain: Rockler's guide to making a raised panel door takes another 1/8 in off the width for every 12 in of width when you build in a dry season. Some methods take more off, such as 5/16 in from the rail length in Precision Bits' guide to frame-and-panel doors, so enter the clearance your method or bit set calls for.

For a raised panel with a tongue shorter than the groove, the panel is worked out from the tongue length. Add twice the difference between the groove depth and the panel tongue to the panel clearance to get the same result. For a 3/8 in groove and a 5/16 in tongue, that's 1/8 in more.

For a wider bottom rail, subtract the extra width from the panel height. For a tall door with a mid rail, take the door height minus the top, bottom, and mid rails, split it in two, and add twice the groove depth minus the clearance to each half for the two panels. Rockler adds a center rail to its made-to-order shaker doors over 50 in tall.

Where the defaults come from

Default Source
1/2 in overlay and the door size formula Cabinetdoors.com, How to Measure Cabinet Doors for 1/2 in. Overlay; Blum, CLIP top BLUMOTION technical documentation
1/8 in gap between doors Cabinetdoors.com, How do you measure for a cabinet door overlay?
16 mm overlay Blum, CLIP top BLUMOTION technical documentation
2 1/4 in (57 mm) stiles and rails Rockler, How To Make An Arched-Top Raised Panel Door; CMT, The ABC's of Panel Door Construction
3/8 in groove Rockler, the same guide; Precision Bits, Building Frame-and-Panel Doors
1/16 in panel clearance Rockler, the same guide; Kreg, Making Drawer Fronts on a Router Table

The Metric gap, groove depth, and clearance are the US values rounded to 3 mm, 9.5 mm, and 1.5 mm. Check them against your hinges and bits.

Examples

A single door

A 15 × 30 in opening with a 1/2 in overlay takes a 16 × 31 in door. With 2 1/4 in stiles and rails, a 3/8 in groove, and 1/16 in clearance, cut 2 stiles at 31 in, 2 rails at 12 1/4 in, and a 12 3/16 × 27 3/16 in panel. The stiles and rails come to 7.21 ft before waste.

A pair of doors

A 30 × 30 in opening with a pair of doors and a 1/8 in gap takes 2 doors 15 7/16 × 31 in. Each door has rails 11 11/16 in long and an 11 5/8 × 27 3/16 in panel.

Metric doors

A 400 × 700 mm opening with a 16 mm overlay takes a 432 × 732 mm door. With 57 mm stiles and rails, a 9.5 mm groove, and 1.5 mm clearance, the rails are 337 mm and the panel is 335.5 × 635.5 mm. An 800 mm opening with a pair of doors and a 3 mm gap takes 2 doors 414.5 mm wide.

FAQ