How to Hang Wreaths on Kitchen Cabinets & the Best Size

This is everything you need to know about hanging wreaths on kitchen cabinets for the most aesthetically pleasing look. You will love this simple and easy way to decorate your kitchen for holidays or year-round.

Why have I waited this long to hang wreaths on my kitchen cabinets?! It’s befuddling. I am befuddled.

I’m so in love with these mini wreaths on my kitchen cabinet doors. With one simple project, I immediately took my Christmas decorations from about a 6 to an 11 on the scale of Does This House Have Holiday Spirit. Now all I want to do is curl up in my red plaid pajamas, a marshmallow-dense cup of hot cocoa in my hand, while the snow swirls outside my window (ignore the loud dinosaur noises coming from my toddler…and the fact that I don’t own red plaid pajamas…yet).

But just because I’m featuring Christmas wreaths and ribbon in this post, don’t feel like you can’t display wreaths on your cabinets year round, because you absolutely can! Simple greenery wreaths, like boxwood or eucalyptus, lend a beautiful country or farmhouse feel to any kitchen and might be just the pop of color you need.

In this post, I’m showing you the best way to hang wreaths on cabinets, how much ribbon you need (if you choose to use ribbon), and what size wreath is best. Plus, I’m sharing my secret trick to get your wreaths to stay in place so they don’t swing around every time you open and close your cabinets!

white kitchen with red buffalo plaid ribbon wreaths on cabinet doors, best size wreath for cabinets

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

What do you need to hang wreaths from kitchen cabinets?

small wreaths: I found mine at Hobby Lobby
Command hooks: I used these clear ones. You just want to make sure your wreaths are within the weight limit of whatever hooks you choose.
ribbon: I recommend 1.5 inch or 2.5 inch wide ribbon. Most of the ribbon pictured here also came from Hobby Lobby, but if you want more variety and ribbon of a higher quality, this is my very favorite place to buy ribbon.
hot glue gun
chenille stems (if making ribbon bows)
Fray Check (also for the bows, to seal the ends of the ribbon tails so they don’t fray)
scissors
measuring tape
this mounting putty

You can tell me to back off, but I’d like to take a quick second to heavily dissuade you from choosing wreaths or ribbon with any kind of glitter or flocking that sheds. I love glitter and wintery flocking as much as the next person, but I think you’re going to be super annoyed if you choose this for your kitchen cabinet wreaths and have to constantly wipe up the fallout on your counter and floors (and you probably don’t want that stuff falling in your food, either). I saw some beautiful wreaths at Hobby Lobby when I was shopping but gave them a little shake and…nope, no thanks. Be strong, friend.

What’s the best size wreath for kitchen cabinets?

This depends a little on the size of your cabinets, but the ideal wreath size for kitchen cabinets is anywhere between 8 inches and 10 inches in diameter. (That’s the short answer.)

Before we dive into how to choose the right size wreath for your kitchen cabinets, let’s review some cabinetry terminology for kicks and giggles.

Cabinet doors are made up of an interior panel (the main rectangular portion of the cabinet door, though it doesn’t have to be strictly a rectangle) and framing (the pieces around the panel). The left and right sides of the framing are called stiles, and the top and bottom pieces are called rails.

When choosing a wreath for your kitchen cabinets, the best wreath size is no wider than the cabinet door panel. If a wreath is larger than that, it starts overlapping the stiles which isn’t quite as aesthetically pleasing, but more importantly, it could hinder the functionality of the cabinet doors.

(If your cabinet doors are spaced further apart or your wreaths are a little more delicate—less visually-heavy—then you might be able to get away with extending a few more inches.)

I think the most visually appealing wreath size is anywhere between half the width of the panel and the whole width of the panel. (These would be classified as mini wreaths, by the way, as opposed to a full-size wreath that you’d hang on your front door.)

For my kitchen I went with roughly 9-inch wreaths since my smallest cabinet door panels are 10.25 inches wide (I also have a larger cabinet with panels that are 16.25 inches wide, but the 9-inch wreath is still a perfect size for those, too).

I think you can get away with even smaller wreaths (I’d say a minimum of 6 inches in diameter) if:

your cabinets are narrower
your kitchen is small or tight, or
you put a wreath on every single cabinet

Which brings me to the next question…

Which kitchen cabinets should you hang wreaths on?

With the larger wreaths (I say larger, but they’re still technically “mini” wreaths), you may or may not want to put a wreath on every single cabinet. I personally like leaving some cabinets without to give the eye a break and prevent the room from feeling cluttered. But, if you’re using 6-inch wreaths, I actually think it looks better to put one on every cabinet.

Of course, I’ve seen lots of kitchens with the larger wreaths on every cabinet, and I suppose it can look nice in the right kitchen, it’ll just make a larger statement.

If you do want to space out your wreaths a bit, the cabinets you leave empty is totally up to you and depends on your kitchen layout. In most cases, I recommend keeping wreaths in pairs if you have facing cabinet doors (so, don’t skip every other door or something like that).

As far as upper and lower cabinets (above counter or under counter), I would only put wreaths on upper cabinets.

How do you hang a wreath on a kitchen cabinet?

You have a few options here, depending on the look you’re going for.

Hang with a hook on the front of the cabinet

Probably the simplest way to hang a wreath on a cabinet is to hang it from a hook on the front of the cabinet (definitely use Command hooks for damage-free removal later!). You have two options with this “floating” look:

you can tie a string or ribbon to your wreath and hang the string or ribbon from the hook, or
you can hang the wreath directly from the hook. (I much prefer this option since the hook will be hidden.)

I think a front hook is a great option if you’re hanging a simple wreath and want a more minimal look.

Hang with a hook on the inside of the cabinet

My favorite way to hang wreaths from cabinets (and probably the more popular way) is to attach a long piece of ribbon to the wreath, pull it up and over the top of the door, and hang it from a Command hook that you’ve placed on the inside of the cabinet door.

You have lots of options when it comes to Command hooks, but I went with these small clear ones that I happened to have on hand when doing this project.

The trick here is to put the hook upside down so the weight of your wreath will pull upward on it when it’s hanging on the opposite side. When sticking the adhesive strip on the hook, you also want the tab to be upside down (so, at the bottom in this orientation) so you’ll be able to pull down if/when you want to remove the hook.

how to hang wreaths on cabinets with hooks

I put my hooks right below the top rail on the back of the cabinet door, which is the perfect spot: it’s high enough that I’m not wasting ribbon, but not too high that it interferes with the cabinet door being able to close properly (pay attention to that with your cabinets before sticking your hook on).

You should measure your cabinet doors to find the center so you know exactly where to stick your hooks…but I just eyed mine (*audible gasp*).

After you’ve determined the length of ribbon you need (more on that in a second), you can attach the ribbon to your wreath and then tie or hang it from the hook (see below).

To attach the ribbon to the wreath, I went with a simple ribbon loop that I glued around the wreath. To do this, just slip one end of the ribbon through the wreath and back over the top. Then fold over the other end of the ribbon and hot glue them together to make a loop. You’re not actually gluing anything to the wreath, which is great if you decide to change out the ribbon in a few years when you’re ready for something new (or even every year if you want!).

how to hang Christmas wreaths on cabinets

When hot gluing, just fold the ribbon over and let it sit on the hot glue without touching it at all. If you touch it too soon, the hot glue might seep through the ribbon and leave white residue on the top. I found that I could lightly press on the ribbon with silicone finger protectors and that was okay (safer, too).

Wait until the glue is completely cool and then you can hang the wreath on your cabinet. If needed, reposition the ribbon loop so the glued portion is right at the top of the wreath so the wreath hangs straight.

To hang the wreath, measure how low you want it to hang and, once positioned, hold the ribbon in place on the top of your cabinet. Then slide the end of the ribbon under the hook and make a knot, being careful to keep the wreath hanging at the same length you just measured. If it helps, you can have someone hold the wreath while you tie the knot.

(Oh, and I’m totally standing on my kitchen counters here…my toddler was napping, but otherwise I have to tell him that we never stand on counters…only mommy. 😆)

I didn’t have any issues with being able to slip my wreaths on and off the hook, but you could also make a knot an inch or two lower on the ribbon, creating a small loop to hang from instead. If you want to make this even easier on yourself (and save a few inches of ribbon, too), you can just use the hook to poke a hole in your ribbon and hang them that way.

To measure where to put subsequent wreaths, I just matched them to one of the wreaths I’d already hung, moving the finished wreaths as needed so I could eye the next one easier.

How much ribbon do you need to hang a wreath on kitchen cabinets?

I have very tall kitchen cabinets (this kitchen was the thing I was most excited for when we moved—yay for storage space!). My cabinet doors measure 41.5 inches from top to bottom and I wanted my wreaths to hang about two thirds of the way down the door. This meant I needed to cut my ribbon to about 40 inches in order to have enough to wrap around the wreath, as well as to tie a knot to hang on the hook. I hung wreaths on five of my cabinets (one is on a cabinet by my fridge which I didn’t photograph), so this came out to about 17 feet of ribbon for hanging.

If you want to make ribbon bows, you will also want to plan extra ribbon for that. (One of my favorite things to do is buy lots of extra craft supplies with intentions to return what I don’t use…and then just keep the extra anyway. It’s fun.)

I used 50.5 inches of ribbon for each double bow (plus or minus a little). So, that’s another 21 feet of ribbon. You can see exactly how I make my double ribbon bows here.

So, to deck out my kitchen cabinets with low-hanging wreaths, complete with gorgeous ribbon bows, I needed to buy two 30-foot rolls of ribbon. I got most of the ribbon at 50% off, so the ribbon for this project only cost about $8. (The wreaths were $4.50 apiece, also 50% off, so this entire project only cost $30! Not bad. And I have ribbon leftover to wrap gifts.)

How far down should you hang a wreath on kitchen cabinets?

I feel like you have three options for where to position wreaths on cabinets:

1/3 of the way down (so, positioned more at the top of the cabinet): I think this is especially good if you have tall ceilings, helping to draw the eye upward.
right in the middle: this is a popular choice and looks decent in most kitchens, but for some reason it’s not my favorite (maybe it’s too “even” for my eyes).
2/3 of the way down: this is what I went with in my kitchen—I like that it makes the wreaths kind of at eye level (well, I’m not quite that tall but maybe at my husband’s eye level).

How do you attach ribbon bows to wreaths?

If you’re adding ribbon bows, you can use hot glue to stick them to the wreaths. (I recommend positioning the bow at the top of the wreath, centering it on the ribbon loop that’s glued around the wreath.) Or, you can use a longer chenille stem when assembling the bow and use that to attach the bow to the wreath (just thread the chenille stem under the ribbon loop and bend or twist it to secure the bow in place).

I’m totally in love with this gold and blush pink ribbon. I now want to change all of my Christmas decorations to be pink or rose gold.

blush pink and gold ribbon bow on kitchen wreath

But come on…isn’t it so gorgeous?! I also think the 1.5 inch ribbon size and the double bow worked super well here. (Check out my ribbon bow tutorials to see how I made all the double bows in this post!) Feel free to scrunch your ribbon tails a little bit for added texture. Ahh, that shimmer…so elegant!

Ultimately, though, I went with the red and black buffalo plaid ribbon in the 1.5 inch width. It was that or the red/green plaid here:

Both are so pretty and traditional. Clearly I was having way too much fun making bows. This is what my kitchen officially looks like for Christmas now:

Christmas kitchen with wreaths on cabinets

If you’re debating between 1.5 inch and 2.5 inch ribbon, here’s a comparison to show the difference (2.5 is pretty but definitely makes a larger statement and I feel like it covers too much of the wreath):

How do you keep wreaths from swinging and banging on kitchen cabinets?

As much as I absolutely love the way wreaths look on kitchen cabinets, it can get a little annoying when they move every single time you open and close the cabinet (especially if you do so with any amount of force). But I have a solution for this!

Just like I used in this post, this magical mounting putty came to the rescue! It’s seriously my favorite and the best on the market, in my opinion. Just rip off a piece and roll it into a small ball (anywhere from a pea size ball to a grape size ball), squish it to the bottom of your wreath (on the back of the wreath), and press it into your cabinet door. No more swinging and banging wreaths!

how to keep kitchen cabinets from banging with wall putty

If the backs of your wreaths are textured like mine, you may need bigger balls of putty to get them to stick.

When you want to remove your wreaths, the putty will pull up easily and shouldn’t leave any residue (that’s why I love this one so much!). You can either leave the putty on the wreaths for the following year or you can put the putty back in its packaging to reuse for something else.

FAQs

Can you put a wreath in a kitchen?

Yes! Wreaths make a kitchen feel so homey and festive. We often neglect the kitchen when it comes to holiday decorating, which is such a shame, because it’s so easy to add a few of these mini wreaths around your kitchen.

Where do you hang a wreath in the kitchen?

You can hang wreaths from kitchen cabinets, a range hood, a pantry door, on a hutch, over a window, or even from the backs of chairs. Wreaths also work great in a dining room, if you have one!

How do I choose the right size wreath for kitchen cabinets?

Measure the interior panel of your cabinet doors and choose a wreath that’s between half the width and the full width of the panel. Mini wreaths that are 8-10 inches in diameter are usually a good size.

What do you use to hang wreaths on cabinets?

I recommend using Command hooks to hang wreaths from cabinets, and my favorite way to hang wreaths is with ribbon from one of those hooks. I know some people use painter’s tape, duct tape, or even thumbtacks, but I think those methods are either unreliable or could potentially damage your cabinets, so I recommend the hooks.

Should you remove the cabinet hooks after the holiday season?

If you put the hook on the inside of your cabinet door, I would leave it up permanently, even if you’re not currently hanging a wreath from it! It won’t be seen and then you’re all ready to go for next year or the next time you want to hang a wreath from your kitchen cabinets.

What width of ribbon do you use to hang a wreath?

When hanging a wreath with ribbon, the width of ribbon will vary based on the size of your wreath and where you’re hanging it. For kitchen cabinets, I recommend either 1.5 inch or 2.5 inch ribbon. If I’m also making a matching ribbon bow for my wreath, I prefer the 1.5 inch ribbon.

Should I use wired or non-wired ribbon to hang a wreath?

This is up to you—either will work! I mostly keep wired ribbon on hand so that’s what I use. If you want to make ribbon bows like mine, though, I recommend wired ribbon.

Can you hang a wreath on a range hood?

Yes! If your kitchen has a hood, you can hang a larger wreath on it. If you’re also hanging wreaths on your cabinets, you could just make the hood wreath a larger version of those, or you could go with a contrasting wreath for more variety.

How do you hang a wreath on a range hood?

I recommend using a Command hook to hang a wreath from your range hood. Just be sure to follow the directions for damage-free removal later.