Most of us can claim to know a little about DIY, but few of us are experts. But this doesn't mean that simple jobs like putting up shelves or fitting replacement kitchen doors should be left to experts though. Both of these jobs are easy to achieve and take a similar skill level. In fact if you have ever put up a shelf, you can easily fit your own kitchen doors and save yourself a fortune.

The skills used to put up a shelf are very similar to those used when installing a new kitchen cabinet door. All it takes is a little bit of experience with an electric screwdriver, the ability to check everything is level and the time and patience to measure everything carefully.

It might take you a little longer than a tradesman, but at upwards of £100 a day for a good workman, it is well worth the extra effort to do the work yourself. Plus, with DIY, you will have the extra satisfaction from knowing you did it yourself and did a good job.

DIY

The DIY process

  • Similar to fitting a shelf, you will need to work out the correct sizing first. In the case of replacement kitchen doors this is really easy. Just remove your old kitchen doors using a screwdriver and measure them on the inside. You should measure the inside. This will prevent your measurement being affected by any bevelling or shaping on the outside of the door.
  • Note the measurements of the hinges, so that you can have the holes for these pre-drilled too. All you need is to take careful measurements with a tape measure. Not hard at all. But measure twice or three times to be sure. Also always measure every door or drawer front. There could be variations across your kitchen even if they look the same to you.
  • Now order your kitchen doors, the handles, new hinges if needed and any other accessories you might want to add.
  • When it comes to fitting your door handles (you should do this job before you fit the doors in most cases), designing a template is a good idea if all of your doors are the same size. This will mark exactly where the handle will sit on each door and will guide you about where to pre-drill the holes for them to be fitted. On some surfaces it is a good idea to use masking tape to ensure your drill doesn't slip leaving you with a big dent on the surface of the door. This should also prevent the surface of the door cracking when you use the drill.
  • When your doors arrive you should offer them up to your carcasses just to make sure they fit correctly before you go ahead and screw in the hinges and attach them. You may want to use an electric screwdriver/drill, but if you want you can always use a standard manual screwdriver. It might be slightly harder work, but as long as you are strong enough, it will still work just fine.
  • You can adjust hinges up and down and side to side to get your doors sitting straight and in line with each other. Just as you would check your shelf to make sure it isn't wonky, you should do the same with your doors. Use a level for this job so the result is accurate.
  • Finally sit back and enjoy looking at the results of your hard work – except it wasn't really hard work at all!

If you can put up a shelf you can easily fit replacement kitchen doors. In fact even if you have never fitted a shelf, you probably can still fit kitchen doors. It is a breeze and you will feel so proud of yourself that you have saved so much money. You can finally call yourself a DIY er!