Hinge Overlay for Adding Hinges

Calculating the Overlay of Cabinet Doors

Assume you have a door that is 23-5/8" wide and the cabinet opening for that door is 21" wide. 

With the meaurements of the cabinet door and the cabinet door opening, we can calculate the cabinet door overlay.

We will use the door measurement (D) and the opening measurement (O) to find the difference between the two (DF) to obtain the overlay.

D - O = DF, then DF ÷ 2 = Overlay

So, using the measurements from above...

23.625" - 21" = 2-5/8", then 2-5/8" ÷ 2 = 1-5/16"

In this case, the overlay is 1-5/16" and this is the hinge overlay that we would need.  This same formula for calculating cabinet door overlay can be used for mounted or unmounted cabinet doors.  For unmounted, just decide how much you want to overlap the opening on the hinge side and this is the hinge that you need to purchase.  You can see our selection of compact style hinges here.  

If you using "long arm" hinges and need to order replacement mounting plates, you will use the same formula as above.  With "long arm" hinges the overlays will be between 3/8" and 3/4", based on the mounting plate thickness and the "crank" of the hinge.