Ikea Avsikt now soft closes!

Materials: AVSIKT - BLUM hinges

Description: When I began updating my kitchen with IKEA cabinetry, I was disappointed to find that my cabinet door choice AVSIKT did not have the soft close feature that is ubiquitous to other IKEA cabinets and drawers. The problem was that the door was flush with the cabinet frame when closed and that the inset glass was recessed so that the the RATIONEL door damper that piggy-backed to the INTEGRAL door hinge did not make contact with door in order to soften the closing of it.

After much research, I discovered that the OEM for IKEA cabinet hinges was BLUM and that they did infact manufacture a hinge that fits aluminum framed glass cabinet doors: B073T550AB.

This particular hinge slides, snaps into and screws onto the hinge cutout on the door frame and provides a "foot" that protrudes in front of the glass (see photo) and provides that strike surface needed by the RATIONEL door damper in order to soften the close.

Finding this hinge online was elusive and it appears simply as: 73T550AB.

The "hack" is to simply replace the hinges with the above part and clip on the RATIONEL damper to the hinge and voila! the AVSIKT doors now close softly!

~ P J Pires, New Bedford, MA