Imitation Louvered Cupboard Door

Over the years, I have fitted a several louvered cupboard doors around the house. I acquired most of them at DIY centers, however, sometimes I need a specific size which is not available commercially. Here, I show how I made a cupboard door, which pretends to be a louvered door, in order to match a door I fitted a few years ago.

Materials

For the door frame:

4 Strips of wood - 20mm x 65mm (lengths according to door size)

2 strips of 4-5mm x 50mm plywood (lengths according to door size)

Profiled beading - quarter circle with 13mm x 13mm flats (several lengths according to area of door)

For joining it all together:

Wood screws

Quality, water-resistant wood glue

Depending on placing of door:

Piano hinge

Magnetic catch

As this is more of a How-I-solved-a-problem Instructable than How-you-should-do-it Instructable, I am presuming you can make a basic wooden frame. I cut the 20mm x 65mm strips from larger edge-glued boards and joined them by butting the edges together, drilling through the long sides into the ends of the top and bottom pieces, and securing them with dowels and glue.

Cutting everything at right-angles is key to the resulting door being straight. I tend to cut pieces like this a little longer and then true the right-angle on a sanding disc. It´s probably not very professional, but it is the most forgiving method for somebody like myself who is not a trained woodworker.

Once the glue had dried, I nailed 2 vertical strips of plywood to the back of the frame to hold the short, horizontal lengths of beading imitating the louvers.

I cut the lengths of beading according to the distance between the inside edges of the frame - leaving a gap of about 2mm at each end for expansion - and sanded the ends. Next, I spaced the beading strips across the height of the door evenly, making sure that the bottom "louver" sat on the edge of the lower frame section and the top "louver" was tucked under the edge of the top frame section. I moved them around until I had even gaps (just a few millimeters) between each horizontal strip.

The last thing to do at this stage was to find something to use a spacer corresponding to the gaps between the "louvers", apply glue to the back edge of each "louver" where it contacts the vertical plywood strips behind and, using the spacer, I pressed each one down firmly and left it all to dry.

Finally, I added my "louvered" door to the cupboard I made a few years ago in our bathroom. There used to be a bath up against the left side of the original cupboard (in the image), which I have replaced with a shower cubicle and thus, needed to hide the resulting open end, whilst utilizing it for storing cleaning products used in the bathroom.

The method of installing the door depends of course, on the situation. I used a simple piano hinge down its far edge and a magnetic catch at the front edge, with a curved cutout on the front-facing edge to serve as a handle. The whole door has been of course, treated to several coats of varnish - Osmo hard wax.

The door is not identical, of course, and is not intended to be. It does not however, I feel, seem out of place.