Kitchen Cabinets part 1

This week we wrapped up the closet door by putting a full coat of paint on it (so much paint!!) and adding the knob.

We (well, *I*) wanted the knob to match the other doors in the hallway. I wasn't pleased with the smaller knobs I found online, so I just purchased another door knob, and we used half of it instead of the whole thing.

Scott used his saw (little hand saw) to cut off the two tubes that protruded out and would have connected to the other side.

He then pressed the knob onto the wood to leave indentations where the screw holes needed to be drilled, as well as the indentation for the middle circle since it sticks up a bit. Then he used drill bits to drill holes and a circle in the middle to fit the pieces on the back of the knob.

He drilled the screw holes all the way through and attached the screws from the back. Unfortunately the screws that came with the knob were meant to fit inside of pieces we didn't use, so a trip to the hardware store was in order.

Before we made it through the entryway to the store, Scott dropped the knob, sending the "glass" (I'm now convinced it's super hard resin because it neither cracked nor shattered on impact with the concrete floor) flying. I retrieved it and took the opportunity to use it as a nail prop to show off the manicure I did earlier that day. Priorities! 😉

With two different screw sizes in hand, we headed home to finish securing the knob.

The door is perfect! Scott did an excellent job copying the style of the other doors in the hall and it blends beautifully. Best of all, I'm no longer embarrassed that our messy hall closet is on display!

While we were getting screws for the doorknob we picked up a piece of birch plywood to begin making cabinets for the kitchen.

Scott used Google Sketchup to make a drawing (actually to scale!) of the cabinet boxes we need.

This is the right side of the kitchen that you see when standing in the dining room. Where the man is (he's there for scale) is where the door to the living room is. On the left is another bank of cabinets and our fridge, but he hasn't drawn that out yet.

What you see in the image is (from left) a 21" cabinet that will hold three drawers, a 10" cabinet that will pull out and hold oils/sauces, the stove, another 10" pull out cabinet that will hold utensils, a corner cabinet, a 27" cabinet that will house the microwave and a deep drawer. A 27" cabinet with three drawers, and a 40" pantry (to the ceiling) that will house pull-out shelves. Whew!

This is what that side of the kitchen looks like now.

The fridge used to be under that small cabinet on the end on the right. The bare drywall is from where we removed the wall and pushed it 1 ft to the right (towards the entry) to allow room for more cabinets/counters.

Everything will shift just a couple inches to the left (we have 36" to the left of the stove now, but it will go down to about 31" plus the counter overhang, so around 33").

We started work on the cabinet boxes Saturday morning and quickly realized it would be a lot easier to cut all (well *most*) of the cabinet boxes at once because we have to change saws and blades for all the different parts, so if we do them all at once it's less shifting/changing/rearranging.

Here we are cutting the the sides of the first cabinet box. Right as we were ready to cut the dado (which involves changing the blade on the table saw) we caved and headed back to the hardware store for the rest of the materials.

Once we were back to the house we started in on cutting all of our pieces.

First we used the circular saw and the track to cut them to the right depth, then we put them through the table saw to get the right height. Half way through the rain got really bad so we had to take a break to comfort Toby inside. He doesn't do well in storms.

Once the pieces were cut to size, we needed to cut two dados: one for the bottom to slide into and one for the back to slide into.

Here is what the dados look like:

The one close to the bottom will hold the bottom panel of the cabinet and the vertical one will hold the back. These dados (grooves) are cut half-way through the wood and will be a snug fit for the panels they'll hold, keeping everything together.

With the dados cut, we moved on to cutting out the toekicks. We chose to make the toekicks a little more narrow than usual because we already have flooring laid that doesn't quite meet the cabinets, meaning we need to bring the toekick forward just a little to close the gap. We used the jig saw to cut these out. We also gave each panel a quick sanding. Only one side panel will be exposed on the outside and every cabinet will have drawers, so you won't see the inside, but the quick sanding just knocked down any burrs on the plywood. Last, we cut some braces out of the plywood that will be used to keep the cabinets square and support the countertop.

Then it was time to assemble:

We had cut the sides and bottom out of 3/4" birch plywood, but the backs are 1/2" MDF. The MDF is half the cost of the plywood, and it won't be seen anyway because it'll be behind the drawers. We used the circular saw and Scott freehand cut the backs, one at a time, from MDF as we assembled them.

We used the Kreg Jig to drill pocketholes to attach the braces: three per cabinet, except one finicky cabinet that we gave 4 because the dado was a little too tight and we didn't want it to pop loose.

Our garage isn't huge, and it's full of tools and wood, so as we assembled the boxes, we (Scott) carried them into the living room where they'll hang out as we work on them.

We assembled 5 boxes, which are the furthest left cabinet, the two directly to either side of the stove, and the two on the right wall. We cut the sides for the corner cabinet, but that will require special cuts for the bottom and back pieces that we weren't prepared for, and we didn't do the pantry as that is up to the ceiling and the ceiling in the kitchen needs to be removed and raised before the pantry will fit.

All in all, it was a ton of work this weekend, but doing all of one step at a time (instead of completing full cabinets individually) was much faster and I'm feeling great about the progress we've made. Next weekend I'd like to take Scott to the stoneyard and see if there are any labor day sales that we can take advantage of to maybe pick our perfect counters!