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When it comes to cabinets, a lot hinges on the hinges. Their style and functionality have a huge effect on the overall appearance and performance of your cabinets and doors, maybe as much as the choice of wood or finish.

With such a wide range of cabinet hinge options, how do you choose? This guide walks you through all the options, and helps you choose the right cabinet hinge for your project. The best place to start is to figure out what type of cabinets and doors you have because that's typically how hinges are broadly categorized.

How to Choose the Right Hinge

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Choosing cabinet hinges goes beyond picking a nice hardware material or color. You also need to consider their functionality and how these cabinet hinges fit into your piece of furniture. Learn important tips for selecting the right hinges for your next project.

Tip #1
If you're building from scratch, you have the flexibility to decide which cabinet hinges you want. But be sure to select your hinges before you get started. Selecting the cabinet hardware should be a critical element in the initial design stage. It's much easier to make a minor change in your design to match the required hardware than it is to rework a project in progress because the hardware you thought would be available can't be found.

Tip #2
How big are your cabinet doors? You do not want to install too many hinges on a door, but you need enough to support the door over time. Two cabinet hinges are the common configuration, but for larger cabinet doors, three or more hinges may be needed. Refer to our door size and hinge count graphic to determine if you need more than two cabinet hinges per door.

Cabinet Door Overlay Options

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It might be necessary to measure the overlay of your cabinet door that’s already mounted to your furniture to determine the right type of hinges to use. The overlay is the distance the cabinet door overlaps the opening on the side where the hinges are placed. Below are different types of cabinet door overlay options.

Overlay Door - Overlay doors overlap the cabinet sides or face frame and extend past the cabinet opening by a specified dimension. The overlay dimension is listed for each hinge, and refers to the amount that the door overlays the cabinet opening. For replacement hinges, you'll need to measure this with a tape measure (see video below). Full overlay doors cover all or nearly all the front edge of the cabinet side on a frameless cabinet. Half overlay doors cover a little less than half (typically 5/16") of the cabinet side, so that two doors hinging on opposite sides of a 3/4'' partition will have 1/8'' of space between them. Not to be confused with 1/2'' overlay, which refers to Semi-Concealed hinges that cover up the cabinet or face frame by 1/2''.

Full Inset Door - Full-inset doors, often called simply ''inset doors,'' fit entirely within the cabinet opening and sit flush with the face of the cabinet sides or face frames when in the closed position.

Hinge Closing Options

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Soft-Close Hinge: Allows your cabinet door to close smoothly and silently no matter how hard the door is closed. With this feature integrated into the hinge cup, there is no additional hardware to install on the hinge or mounting plate.
Shop for Soft-Closing Door Hinges
Snap-Closing Hinge: This type of hinge has a design feature, usually a spring, that helps pull the door in and keep it shut when the door is brought within a few inches of being closed. Sometimes referred to as ''self-closing.'' Strictly speaking, however, ''self-closing'' is actually a broader term that can mean either ''snap-close'' or ''soft-close''. Snap-close hinges close abruptly, while soft-close hinges close slowly. Shop for Snap-Closing Door Hinges
Free-Swing Hinge: This means the hinge can move freely along its path from open to closed. There is no closing assist or catch feature to keep the door shut. These are often made available as an option to identical Self-Closing Hinges so you can use one of each when the self-closing force would otherwise be too abrupt.

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