In order to give the aviary a professional, polished look, it was essential that the aviary doors look nice. I wanted something with a true kitchen cabinet/china cabinet look, with mitered edges on both the inside and outside edges. I also wanted a design in which the Plexiglas panels could be removed and replaced should the original Plexiglas become scratched, cracked, fogged, broken, or otherwise damaged. Because this part of the project is so difficult (unless you are an experienced woodworker) and time-consuming, we decided that we would order the doors to our dimensions from a company that manufactures unfinished cabinet doors. The company I chose was WoodCabinetDoors.com. They allowed me to order doors in any size up to 60" by 24"' (two center doors are 60" by 24", the other four doors are 60" by 23"). Shipping was free since my order exceeded a designated limit, and the total price of the doors with the Plexiglas included was $703.06.

I had two minor problems with the service from this company. The first was that they estimate delivery in about 2 weeks and it took closer to a month, which was understandable given that the doors I ordered were extraordinarily large. I e-mailed them about the delay, and the order was in the mail that same day. The other was that I had ordered the door style that does not include a wooden grille, but received doors with a grille. The grille would interfere with viewability, but fortunately they were easily removed (the glue that attached it was flexible enough that we could remove the grille without damaging the doors). Since this was easily rectified and they did not charge us for the grilles, I was satisfied, on the whole. The quality of the workmanship was very good.

(Remember, click on any image to enlarge it.)

	The unfinished door from WoodCabinetDoors.com, after the grilles and Plexiglas were removed.
	A close-up of the mitered edges. The inside edge is standard, but the company offers a variety of outside edge styles. I chose the full cove edge profile (option B). The exact door that I ordered was Red Oak Lexan B, catalog number RO BMLEX.
	Tom stained and finished the door to match the aviary front.
	The door, after staining was complete.

Once the doors were stained and finished (and dry), they needed to have the hardware attached and the Plexiglas panels reinserted. The doors had come with screw-on mirror clips to hold the Plexiglas, but we chose not to use them because they extruded too far and interfered with the door shutting all the way (I did not design the door space to be wide enough to allow for these clips because I did not know it would be a problem. We had two choices: 1: drill out a little of the wood of the frame where the clips would overlap, or 2: find another means of attaching the doors. We deemed it would be simplest to add little screwes to the inside of the door frame to hold the Plexiglas in place. Should it need to be replaced, the screws could easily be removed.

	First, hinges were attached in three places along each door. Holes were predrilled.
	After the holes were drilled, screws were inserted and tightened with a screwdriver.
	Holes were drilled for the handle on each door.
	Then the handle was attached by screwing in the screws through the holes with a screwdriver.
	Instead of using the existing method of attaching the Plexiglas, we attached the plexiglass by inserting tiny screws to hold it in place. These screws did not interfere with shutting the doors the way the mirror clips did.
	Magnetized latches were installed to hold the doors shut. The square piece was attached to the door with a screw.
	The latch part was screwed to the aviary front.
	The aviary, complete with doors.

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