Soft-Close Cabinet and Wardrobe Hardware: How to Choose It Right
A door that slams shut or sags open usually has the wrong soft-close hardware. The difference between regular and soft-close hinges or slides, and what to check before ordering.
How to Adjust Kitchen Cabinet Door Hinges: Fixing Crooked Doors and Uneven Gaps
Is a cabinet door sagging or rubbing against its neighbour? Once you know the three adjustment screws on a concealed hinge, most of these problems take minutes to fix, with no new hardware.
A few months after installation, one kitchen cabinet door has dropped slightly, rubs against the next door, or no longer closes fully. In most cases the cabinet itself is fine; the cabinet door hinge adjustment has drifted, and a plain Phillips screwdriver brings it back. In Germany, adjusting kitchen cabinet doors (Küchenschranktüren einstellen) is one of the most searched kitchen questions, precisely because homeowners can do it themselves.
Why do cabinet doors go out of line over time?
Modern cabinet hinges (concealed or cup hinges) are designed to be adjusted after installation. The workshop sets the doors on installation day, but several things gradually shift that setting:
- The weight of the door, especially tall or glass-panel doors, which slowly loosens the screws.
- Children hanging on doors, or people leaning on an open door.
- Seasonal drying and humidity, which move the carcass and door slightly; in hot, dry climates this shows most in the first months.
- A screw that no longer bites in a worn hole in MDF or particleboard.
If the door has simply shifted, adjustment is enough. If the hinge is cracked or its screw will not hold, the issue is no longer adjustment: the screw seat needs repair or the hinge needs replacing.
The three hinge adjustment screws and what each one does
On most cup hinges, the metal arm and the mounting plate carry screws that each move the door in one direction. Their exact form varies between brands, but the logic is the same:
- Side-to-side adjustment: the screw closest to the door edge. Turning it moves the door towards or away from the hinge side, evening out the gap between two neighbouring doors.
- In-and-out (depth) adjustment: the screw further back on the arm. If the door does not sit flush on the carcass or one corner sticks out, this is the screw to use.
- Up-and-down adjustment: done on the mounting plate fixed to the carcass, either by loosening screws in slotted holes or, on newer hinges, with a cam screw.
Turn one screw a little, close the door and look. Hinge adjustment moves in half turns, not several turns.
The right order for adjusting a cabinet door
Order matters, because each adjustment affects the others. This is the sequence we follow on installation:
- First check every screw fixing the hinge to the door and carcass, and tighten any loose one before adjusting anything.
- Next set the height so the top edges of the doors line up.
- Then adjust side to side until the gaps between doors are even; the eye notices uneven gaps far more than their exact width.
- Finally adjust depth so the door sits flat against the carcass.
- On tall doors with three or four hinges, turn every hinge by the same amount, or the door will twist.
If the door is soft-close and still slams after adjustment, the damper is probably at fault rather than the setting; that is covered in our guide to soft-close hardware.
When adjustment will not fix it
If the hinge screw spins in the carcass and will not tighten, the hole is stripped. A bigger screw is usually a temporary fix that crumbles the MDF further. The proper repair is to fill the hole with a glued wooden dowel and drill it again. If the hinge cup has torn out of the door, or the hinge itself is bent, the hinge must be replaced or the cup seat repaired. And if the carcass has swollen from a water leak, no adjustment will keep the door straight; the cause has to be dealt with first.
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