Designer cabinet doors on a budget

Beautiful green bookshelf with doors

I made these doors for this old bookshelf. Let’s not talk about how I got these doors hung because I’m no expert in that. But I am an expert in design. So here’s how to make this awesome design on any cabinet doors. Each cabinet door dimension is 66.5”x17.5”

DifficultyTimeCost of materials
Medium2-3 hours$20 Plywood

What you need

  • Mitre saw
  • ¼” plywood (2×4 ft board)
  • Tablesaw or have the hardware store cut down 12 strips to 1.5” x 24”
  • Wood conditioner
  • Wood stain
  • Sander
  • P220 sandpaper 
  • 23 gauge pin nailer
  • ¾” pin nails
  • Level
  • Pencil 

Build your star

  1. Using your table saw, cut down 3 strips of wood 6” wide
  2. You’re going to be making 8 parallelograms that have a 45° on each side 
  3. Set up a stop block by clamping a piece of wood to your mitre saw. This ensures each they will be same size. Mine are 8.5” long each
  4. Set your mitre saw to 45° and make your parallelograms
  5. Sand the edges smooth using p220 sandpaper
  6. Use wood conditioner and stain to give it a Beautiful colour
  7. Find the centerpoint of your cabinet vertically and draw a horizontal line
  8. Now you can start nailing up the pieces using that line as a guide

Cut the strip detailing

  1. Cut plywood strips that are 1.5 inch wide each. You will need 12 strips. I Use my tablesaw to cut these quickly but you can also have the hardware store cut them or use a circular saw
  2. Now cut all your edges to 45° on one side
  3. Sand, wood condition and stain all of them
  4. Lay all your pieces close to your cabinet
  5. Now line up your first piece with the top of your shelf mark to the edge of the outside
  6. Make a straight 90° cut
  7. Use your pin nailer and a level to nail the first strip 
  8. Now for the next one below it you will need to use a spacer. I used a ¼ “piece of scrap plywood as my spacer. Butt it right under that strip and then squeeze up your next strip right under it. Ensure the 45° line is continuous and mark at the end where you need to make a 90° cut
  9. Keep doing this for all your pieces until they’re nailed and completed

Try this awesome project and let me know how it goes! Follow me on instagram for more fun projects

Leave a Reply

Scroll to Top