Have you ever bought a cabinet or bookcase from Ikea only to be disappointed by the gap between the cabinet doors? Me too! I hate that you can see bits and pieces of what’s inside the cabinet through the gap.
A couple of weeks ago I purchased the Brimnes cabinet to go in our basement landing area. I needed some storage in that area but didn’t want to spend a lot of money so Ikea was a great solution.
Ever since the hubby put the cabinet together I’ve been staring at that darn gap between the doors. I’ve been thinking about how I could make it disappear and finally figured out a super easy and inexpensive fix.
The FIX…
I dug through my craft supplies and found a piece of basswood that I purchased years ago from Hobby Lobby. If you’re not familiar with basswood, it’s a very thin piece of bendable hardwood that can be cut with scissors, painted or stained. Crafters use it to create arched or circular shapes for craft projects. 
With my basswood in hand, I put my DIY skills to work. Here’s how I fixed the gap...
Step 1: I cut my basswood to the length of my door. (note: you’ll only be attaching wood to one door). If your door length is longer than 24″, you’ll need to use two pieces of wood and glue them together. The doors on my cabinet are 36″ so I glued two 24″ lengths together and then cut it down to size.
Step 2: Next I painted the wood black to match my cabinet. Because the wood is so thin, it doesn’t take long for the paint to dry.
Step 3: The final step was attaching the wood piece to the open edge of one cabinet door. I used glue dots to attach the wood to my door leaving about 1 1/2″ of wood extended beyond the door edge. The thin basswood sheet will sit between the doors and the interior shelves and fills the dreaded gap.
Gap be gone! Now you can’t see between the doors and the cabinet looks finished.
One other change I made to the cabinet was switching out the ugly wood handles for brass knobs that I bought at Scott Antique Market. Instead of a single pull, I decided on four knobs and just love the look.
Sometimes it the little things that make the biggest difference.
Happy decorating friends.
Such a smart fix! And I love the hardware you chose for your cabinet. I never would have guessed it was from IKEA.
Perfect solution and no more gap!
Perfect fix I’d say! Good thing you had the basswood on hand!!