Scope of Work
Custom aluminum glass doors for two tall built-in cabinets in an apartment on East 83rd Street on the Upper East Side. Each cabinet has a pair of full-height doors: a slim black aluminum frame around a single lite of decorative glass. The doors sit inside dark wood cabinet surrounds, above a stone counter and a run of wood base cabinets.
Slim Aluminum Frames
A cabinet door this tall and narrow needs a frame that stays straight. Wood can do it, but only with wide stiles, and wide stiles would cover much of the glass. An aluminum frame carries the glass with a profile only a fraction of that width, so nearly the whole door is glass and the black line around it reads as a fine outline. The same approach, at a larger scale, is how we build aluminum-framed glass partitions.
Decorative Glass
The glass is translucent, not clear. It lets the cabinet lighting and the colors of what is on the shelves show through as soft shapes, while hiding the detail: plates, bottles and glassware read as forms, not as clutter. That is the usual reason to choose a decorative glass for cabinet doors in a living or dining room. There are several ways to get this effect, including frosted glass and acid-etched glass, each with a different surface and level of privacy, and it is worth looking at physical samples against the cabinet interior before choosing.
Made to the Millwork
The doors were made to the openings of the finished cabinets, so the gaps around each pair and the line where the two doors meet are even from top to bottom. With frames this slim, a small error in size shows immediately, which is why doors like these are measured from the built cabinet and not from the drawing.
Photographs
Photographed after installation.
Similar Work and Related Specifications
Frosted glass · Acid-etched glass · Glass types and specifications · Mirrors and reflective glass · Aluminum-framed glass partitions, Sheepshead Bay · 95 Greene Street, SoHo · 205 East 69th Street
Planning Something Similar?
If you have built-in cabinets, a bar or a closet that needs glass doors, send us photographs and the opening sizes. We will suggest a frame and show you glass samples before anything is made.