My cabinet company wants an absolute fortune for glass. So I skipped it. After they come in, I plan to use a router to remove the center panels and replace them with glass.

A big part of the cost of the glass is that they feel they need to finish the interiors to match the exteriors. I actually wanted maple interior with my white exterior cabinets. With some argument, they agreed to give me the maple finish, but they're still charging me for the extra finishing a glass cabinet "needs".

So you'll have to see if you can get your interior matched (or coordinated with) your interior. You wouldn't want a dark finished cabinet with white melamine interiors exposed to the world.

Can you order doors without the center panel? Then have the glass added locally. That is what I did in my old house with Kraftmaid cabinets. Was cheaper that way.

Well the problem is I wanted to get the grids. I hadn't thought about the interior finish. I think most pictures I've seen it's white to match the cabs, but maybe not. Hmm. Maybe I'm thinking of my old IKEA cabs that had white shelves with glass fronts.

I have one set of glass doors on my RTA cabinets from Scherr's. They finished the interior of that respective cabinet to my requested specifications. The doors arrived ready to receive glass. My guess is they don't want to ship with glass installed due to the possible damage issues.

I am responsible for finding a local glass and mirror company. They can cut me the appropriate size glass. I haven't gotten to it, but I expect the glass and mirror company can install it or I can install it. Given that I have just put all my cabinets together, putting in the glass will be a piece of cake. I wouldn't be afraid of it.

Get your cabinet company to specify if they don't do glass or they don't do doors that can accept glass. The way you have described it, it is a little ambiguous. I bet they will make the doors, they just won't install the glass.

I have a pair of Conestoga doors, waiting for me to get glass from a local shop. I called our HW store (where i have had glass cut for picture frames before) and they suggested I would want tempered glass. So now I will be calling a local glass/mirror company.

I don't expect it to be too expensive, but I haven't gotten around to talking to them yet. Hoping to go or at least call tomorrow. I can let you know how much they price out.

The doors shipped with everything except the glass. Even included a skinny strip of plastic tubing-like material, which I assume the glass guy will know how to use to hold the glass in.

Ah, okay. Is your door solid glass, or do you have any grids? Let me know how it goes!

I took my Conestoga doors to a local place and had mirrors
put in. This kitchen was done back in 2010 and ordered through Cabinetmakers Choice "Chad" . I can’t recall how much it cost for the mirrors. It must not
have been much because I would remember that. Conestoga will do just about any
glass ready door style you want. You can also order the glass inexpensively on
a few online shops and put it in yourself. Ours was a full DIY kitchen remodel
excluding the countertop install and I was just too burnt out to put the mirrors
in myself towards the end.

They will do muntined doors. They just won't supply the glass. Remember to order the matching finished interior. It's not standard.

Happy, I've linked to a video by Cabinet Joint showing how to put glass in a Conestoga door. Hope this help you.Conestoga Glass Door They have a lot of other videos with helpful hints and information. Great company to work with. I had a damaged drawer box and they sent a replacement quickly.

justterrilynn thanks for posting a pic of your beautiful kitchen, I can't believe that was all DIY, wow!

Thanks Happyallison, it was
an odd shaped kitchen with two walls of glass going to the patio and the other
side was open to the family room. The only thing I could do was go vertical. It
worked out okay though because I put the large entertaining stuff that’s only
used a few times a year up on top. The other side of the range was a bulky
built in pantry where I needed counter space. We also made the two story eat-in counter one level for even more counter space.
Other than that we kept the same foot print so as far a DYI-ing it wasn’t
too bad. I’m in another house now and
used Conestoga again but in the master bath, I have a post in bathrooms.

That's a beautiful space!! Do you like the mirrored doors? I was talking about it, but my husband thinks it will look weird.

Here is a pic of my conestoga glass door. 9-lite offset. It was about $130, vs $100 for a similarly sized regular door. There are a bunch of different mullion options. I was so tempted to do one with curves or Xs, but felt like this was about the fanciest I could go in our space. I plan to replace the shelves in the cab with glass, too.

I'm going to put mirror in the door rather than glass. I have limited light in the kitchen. I need the extra light and reflectivity that a mirror will provide.

A while back I'd seen some photos on GW of mirrored kitchen doors. Its not common, but I like it. I think it does make a room appear larger and the mirrors are reflective, bringing more light in if that is needed. Conestoga does indeed sell glass ready doors, they just don't supply the glass, as many don't. Probably due to fragility when shipping. But you should be able to get a local glass company to cut the glass and install if you need them to. Rockler sells a few different types of hardware to hold glass in place also, which looks pretty simple to do yourself.

Thanks justterrilynn I'll search for that, I'm redoing baths as well :). Great job on your kitchen. I have some awkward spaces to work with as well. We can only make the best of it!

Thanks guys re: the info on glass ready doors, I definitely have a reasonable glass company in town to work with so this makes perfect sense now.

Elizard,

I did mirror for two reasons: one is that I
don’t keep my cabinet interiors “show room” so the mirrors seemed a good option
instead of glass. The other reason was as two sides of the kitchen were windows
to the outside and patio area I thought that reflection would be nice. I was
worried about seeing my head in the morning with pyramid hair so opted for a
style door where the mirror would be skinny. The thing is though that with all
the reflection you honestly don’t even notice yourself in the mirror. It’s
really the opposite of what you think. You have to get close and make a point
of getting your head in the reflection and zeroing in. We did that kitchen back in 2010 and are now in another home.

My doors are at the glass shop right now waiting for the glass to be installed right now.

It is easy to pop glass into Conestoga doors. Mine fit beautifully. Whatever I may think of their corporate politics, they do make lovely doors.

Wow, thank you all for the good information, and thank you Cabinet Joint for the thorough explanation, it is very appreciated!

More than welcome, happyallison! Sorry it was so long -winded. Good luck with your project and fire any other questions you may have my way. Happy to help!

We've ordered glass from Bendheim twice (for Conestoga doors) and been quite pleased. Great selection and so much fun to browse through them. You can order samples fairly reasonably and then put them into the door to see how the glass will look.

http://www.bendheimcabinetglass.com/productCatalog.cfm

Is that you Brian? Nice to see you on the forum! I owe you a picture of the family room built-ins, which turned out great.

It is! Wow, it is so good to see all those projects we did in real life! Its been a pleasure working with you! Do you mind if I post your pics on our facebook page and in our Houzz projects page? Just email em over and I will post em. Thanks so much for sharing!

oldbat2be, can I ask which white you chose for your cabinets? Thanks!

happyallison, olbat2be did the main kitchen in Crystal White and the island was in Cordovan. Whites are brutal to discern on a computer monitor, but Crystal white is not a bright white, more in the soft 'linen white' vein. Hope that helps.

oldbat2be, hope I did not overstep my bounds answering the question. I had your files right here on my laptop, so it took no time to dig up!

has anyone been able to match Crystal White to a paint to finish boxes, etc?

kachme7, we have sat down at length with the Sherwin Williams color fan deck and have determined that a very close match to Conestoga's Crystal White is Sherwin Williams SW7002 (Downy White). Ben Moore or other suppliers may have some close matches too, but we have not sat down with their color palette yet. Downy White SW7002 seemed to be almost spot on in most lighting we looked at. Now, it bears mentioning that these are what we (cabinetjoint.com, not Conestoga) determined were close matches. Conestoga will not guarantee their material matches Downy White in any way.

I would think it would be very dangerous to put Conestoga finished product on cabinet boxes done with SW's finish as the chemistry (and therefore the aging process) will be very different and you may end up with very different looks after a few months/years as Latex/oil based paints from Sherwin Williams will age and mellow in very different ways than Conestoga's Catalyzed Conversion Varnish. I would suggest perhaps refacing the boxes with Conestoga finished veneers or refacing molding OR buy all your product unfinished and then finish it all yourself to ensure a good match among all the components. Also remember that Conestoga is laying their coatings down with a sprayer whereas you may be considering brush applied materials to use on your boxes? Brush applied finishes will change the sheen and texture vs spray applied and therefore the color can be thrown off, so putting Conestoga finished doors on your home-finished boxes may result in a very different look, even if the colors of the materials are almost spot on. Just some things to be mindful of!

Let me know if we can help in any way.

Cabinet_joint, thank you !!! You just answered the question that was bugging me for a week.

Justerrilynn did you have any pit marks, mineral stains, etc in your dark stained base cabinets from Conestoga?