European door hinges—how to install and adjust

If you’re installing a kitchen full of cabinets (or even some storage cabinets elsewhere in the house) it’s worth looking into the European hinges.  As you can see in the photos, there are only three basic parts to the hinge and you only need a drill with the appropriate size drill bits and a tape measure.

Inside your cabinet, you can use the holes drilled for the shelf pins to install the base plate. Simply screw it into the row of holes with 5mm diameter screws. Repeat with the top hinge.  Alternatively, you could screw the baseplate to the inside of the cabinet with normal wood screws.

Then, for inset doors, measure from the bottom of inside of the cabinet to the center of each baseplate and subtract 3 mm. Use those new measurement to position the drilling template that came with your hinge set and drill the large hole for the center of the hinge.

Depending on the type of hinge, you may drill smaller holes beside the large hole.  Then place the hinge in the hole and either screw it in on the sides or snap it into pre-drilled holes (as done in this example).  On the hinges shown, the hinge arm is attached by closing the flap on the hinge arm that covers the holes and that’s it. Repeat with top hinge.

Now you can just snap the hinge arms onto the base plates and, if desired, snap on a soft close device or door damper so your kids can’t slam the cupboard doors.

If the hinge needs adjustment, screws on the hinge arm adjust the door in and out and left and right.  Screws on the baseplate adjust the door up and down.  Each adjustment has about 2-3 mm of adjustment.

This is a great system. The hinge hardware is completely hidden from view and there’s no need to cut mortises. The easy adjustment makes it simple to have perfectly aligned doors.

If you are interested in this system, supplies can be purchased at www.cabinetparts.com or www.rockler.com and more information can be found at www.blum.com.  Blum brand hardware was used in these photos.  The baseplates are model number BH175H9100.  The door hinges are model number BH75T1790.  The soft close devices are model number BA973A0700.  The combination here works for inset doors.  Other combinations of parts work well for other applications.