Hidden Pantry Door with a Twist

Welcome back to the kitchen build. 

This time I’m going to be primarily focusing on getting the door that belongs right here actually into existence. This door is going to be a hidden member of the wall because it is going to follow the wall paneling and baseboard detail across, so that when it is closed, it blends in and looks like a wall. 

The architects provided me with a top down view of how this is going to work out. It’s a door with some paneling attached to it, and I’ll have these hidden hinges in here that allow the door to swing into flush with the rest of the wall. 

Here is that hinge in real life, just give you an idea of what that’s actually going to look like. 

One thing that I have to deal with is that one side of my door frame has a twist in it, meaning that my door will have to have a twist built into it. 

There’s a lot of different ways you can make a door. When I was planning on doing this, I didn’t think I was going to have a twist to deal with. I was going to do a torsion box or a hollow core style door where I’d make a webbing to go on the interior, and I would skin it with the MDF panels. That would create a door that would be a lot less heavy but also very rigid. You could also do this with a stave core and make it a solid core that way. But because I’m dealing with this twist, the easiest thing for me to do is to laminate two pieces of three-quarter-inch MDF together. One of those pieces I will cut the twist into. So instead of making a twisted door, I’m going to make a door that has a tapered face. 

I pulled this out of the clamps this morning, and I realized I already made my first mistake. I had intended for the laminate to be on the other side of the one I tapered so that when I apply paneling to it, all the flattening marks would be covered up. Now this side is towards the front, which means more work for the painter (i.e. me) to make this side look nice before painting it. 

I am going to install this piece of white oak in order to have something more substantial for the screws in the hinge to grab onto. 

So I need to make a rabbet for the reinforcement white oak strip to go into the laminate door. 

And while I’m at it, I’m going to rabbet this piece of paneling on as well. 

Next I can start laying in all the other pieces of the paneling. As I was doing that, I removed the bottom part of the groove so that they just lap on here. I don’t necessarily need these to interlock, because it’ll be completely glued down to the substrate. This just makes it a little bit easier for myself. So, I’m going to attack these with some brad nails so they don’t shift around left to right, then take this out to the barn and set it underneath some sheet goods to help hold the paneling down tight because they do have a little bit of a bow in them because they’ve been sitting around for six months now.  

Before I rip this to width, I’m going to get in here and deal with the hinges. This is a setup that I’m going to use to create the mortises for the hinges. I have a three-quarter-inch outside diameter guide bushing and a half-inch spiral bit. So the difference between the side of the cutter and the side of the guide bushing is an eighth of an inch. 

After spending some time getting the size dialed in, this is the fit of the hinge into the mortise. Now that I have that figured out, I can make one template that I can use to do all the mortises. 

Here is the jig mounted to the jamb, ready to go for mortising those hinges. 

Here is the door sitting on the hinges. The door settled a little low and is now contacting the floor, but at least it basically fits. I’m going to take the door back off and take a little off the bottom to get it to sit fully on the hinges. 

With that fixed and the door now sitting fully on the hinges, I can start working on the final width. Either the door or the opening has a little bit of a bow in it, because I’m contacting where the door meets the frame. So I get to take it down again and try to get it to the correct width. 

Last thing is getting the baseboard onto the door. 

I also cut some faux V-groove paneling into the back of the door so that when you are in the pantry with the door closed, the door resembles the paneling that’s in that room as well. 

Here is the handle that’s going on the front of the door, which matches the handle on the refrigerator. The idea there is that as you are pushing the door open, it gives you something to grab that’s relatively easy to clean instead of getting your fingerprints all over this door, and I am planning to mount the handles on stainless steel plates just to hide the through screws. 

Here is the final look of the door with the baseboard installed. You can see it has a nice, consistent gap along the floor. The gaps on the left and the right aren’t consistent because I set the depth of the mortises a little bit deep, with the idea that when I come back and paint and there’s some painting crap in there, that should push the side over a little bit, opening this gap up and evening things out a little bit. But, otherwise, that’s how it fits in there and it looks pretty darn good. 

Here’s what it looks like from inside the pantry. Nothing too crazy, but I think having those V-grooves in there gives it a little bit more visual interest. 

Thank you as always for joining. I greatly appreciate it. If you have any questions or comments on this weird door, please feel free to leave me a comment. As always, I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have. And till next time, happy woodworking!