I'm not sure I follow what your husband is proposing, largely because I don't understand how the existing doors are built. Can you say more about that and/or provide a larger, close-up photo? These tiny pics aren't all that informative.

Thanks jon,

I just uploaded some photos. I hope they are large enough.

A door in the original shape.

Door with gold band removed - channel needs to be covered, but it looks almost as bad with wood putty.

Back of door where the hinge fits. You can see where the wood frame of the door ends and the mdf begins.

On one trial door - where I glued a thin strip of wood to create a false inset panel. This adds an inch and a half, and helps the door look a lot less 80's.

Door from further back (don't know why it is pink in the photo.) With more careful painting, I believe that this could look ok.

As you can see from the "back shot of the hinge area" above, there is not much of a wood frame. Is there any way that we could add glass instead of the mdf for some of the upper panels? Would we still be able to add a little wood molding to make it look like the lowers? We are still not thrilled with the rounded edge of the doors, but believe that they would be acceptable for a few years with the added molding. Should we give it up and go with the Adel doors? Thank you for your expertise.

It probably doesn't matter much, but the core of your existing doors appears to be particle board, not MDF. MDF is very fine-grained, and looks like the cardboard a cereal box is made from. Particle board is made from coarse sawdust.

As to the Ikea doors... I haven't examined one up close, but I'm wondering whether you have the machinery to properly resize the parts. Google helped me find a page about disassembly of these doors, and it looks like the frames have doweled tounge-and-groove joints. This means that making the door narrower will require cutting a new tounge on the end of the shortened rails, and boring new dowel holes too. This is not all that easy to do with typical homeowner equipment. I also don't see why you'd want to buy premade doors, completely disassemble them, re-machine all of the parts, reassemble them and then paint over the original finish, and buy new hinges to boot. If you're willing and able to do all of that, why not start from scratch?

If I had to make a glass door from one of your existing doors, I'd be inclined to cut the rectangular glass opening all the way through the particleboard, then attach the faux frame strips such that the overhang the particleboard and create a rabbet; the glass would sit directly against the false frame, and the retaining strips behind the glass would conceal the edge of the particleboard. This IS a kludge; the door will not stand up to much abuse, as no particleboard frame is going to have the integrity of a solid wood frame. But if you're not abusive, it would probably last a couple of years.

Having said all of this, it seems like you could easily find yourself spending more time on the project than it's worth. I realize you're trying to avoid spending cash, but isn't your time worth something? If this is really a short-term stopgap, might it make sense to just paint the existing doors and then focus on saving the money for properly built doors?

Thanks for your answer. It confirmed what I thought about creating glass doors - I can't see my 15 year old ds being all that careful with a cabinet door opening it and closing it.

I guess I wasn't clear on my first post, sorry - we are seriously considering the Adel doors because most of our cabinets would fit these doors - we would need to adapt just a few of the uppers. The frames are solid wood, and the low cost per door in "As-Is" is just not touchable with raw materials. We will rip paint grade lumber for slab drawer fronts as needed. According to the instructions I saw on resizing Adel doors, all that I would need to do (after disassembling and cutting to size) would be to drill holes for the pegs. As my widths are standard size, (the reason we would need to cut the stiles is that our cabinets are 33" tall, not the Ikea standard 30" or 39") - I believe that I would only need to drill the holes properly, line up and glue. Since the stiles are being cut and not the rails, I don't believe that I will need to cut a new tongue. To add glass, I may or may not have to cut a rabbit. (If the glass slides in, I could glue it in and add clips to the back if needed.) I couldn't do an entire kitchen this way, but for the 5 or so doors I need to retrofit, since I am painting anyway, I think it is worth it. The only reason most of the doors are in As-Is is that there are small scratches, very easy to take care of when prepping to paint.

Thank you, thank you for answering my questions.

Hestia

I see. I suspect you'll find it challenging enough to drill the holes in exactly the right spot, but having to do it on only a few doors, and not having to mess with the tounges, makes the idea sound a lot better. If you don't have a good drill press (or dowel press, or horizontal mortiser), it might be worth it to have someone drill the holes in the stiles for you; it's a piece of cake with the right equipment, and almost impossible to do well without it.

Anyhow, my inclination would be to go for the Adel doors, paint them nicely, and probably never need to buy replacements.

If you decide to go in either of your proposed directions for the upper doors, have you thought of some sort of plexiglass for the upper doors, as it would be a lot lighter in weight?

I also find myself asking the question posed by Jon regarding how much time this is worth for something that I can't be convinced will be all that great a result either way. To be (brutally) frank, and I hope you'll forgive me for it, I thought I was good at creating the greatest possible amount of work for no reason other than to worsen a situation, but I think this outdoes me :-)

It seems to me - and I know it's a matter of taste - that the existing doors could be made to look quite seriously acceptable with only paint, and no challenges at all with respect to fit, hinges, glue strips, or any other adaptations. In particular if you did something fancy with stencils or faux finishes, or even with wallpaper inserts on the panels, you could get a really nice look, fast, on a door that is secure and solid and that fits. For the cost of paint or wallpaper - and if you go with mistints or the leftover wallpaper bin, that could be very cheap indeed. Like ten bucks.

Then put some money into some fabulous handles, and you're free to start baking!

Not that you asked "whether" but only how, I know. And given the choices you've mentioned, I'd go with the lath strips and skip making the uppers transparent. Or, do the lath on the lowers, and then you've got a few dollars to spend on proper (not adapted) glass doors or plexi for the uppers.

KarinL

Or what about taking a long walk around your local moulding and millwork warehouse, if you have one, to see if there is a piece of moulding you could use on your existing doors to disguise either the outside of the rounded edges, or the channel where the gold bead was removed, or both? Pieces like chair rails or crown mouldings or even a base shoe can be adapted for myriad uses.

Other options that occurred to me overnight for making your existing doors look decent were either some tile accents, which again you can get cheap or second-hand, or pressed tin panels...

KarinL