Well,
Here goes. I was contemplating building my own kitchen cabs, but was not quite sure. However, after reading through some of the threads here, I think that I can do it. I recently bought a small house and the original cabs are just plywood (built it ’39). Needless to say…..blech!
I really liked the thread http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages?msg=17809.1 and feel I can do this (note the passion in the phrase “i think i can, i think i can, i think i can…). However, aside from relating to a small train engine going up a huge hill, the mark does not seem that far off.
Any other engines out there with a final word of advice?
rasko
Replies
Look at the Taunton book "Building Traditional Kitchen Cabinets" by Jim Tolpin. I read it before I did my kitchen and I think it helped a lot.
The project is not as daunting as it my seem. Draw up what you want, figure what you need and go to it.
Some of the advantages of building you own is that you will use better materials than most cabinet companys, you can make non standard sizes to fit your kitchen, you can make the deeper, higher, shorter whatever fits for you.
Joe
I had no wall cabinets in our kitchen so I built a couple not having any idea what I was doing! you'll do fine.
Rasko,
Building kitchen cabinets is pretty straight forward -- the one thing that I would remind you is that it is not "fine" furniture, so if anything it may be daunting in terms of the size of the job, but not necessarily in terms of the difficulty (but before anyone jumps on me about this, it does depend on how "custom" of a kithen you want -- you can of course go crazy if you wish). There is no complex joinery, etc... When I built my kitchen I used soft maple and cabinet grade 3/4" maple ply. Any of the sides thar are exposed are solid wood frame and panel to match the doors, but any of the sides that you can't see are maple ply -- the plywood edges are coverd by a hardwood face frame and the shelves whihc are also ply, are hardwood edge banded.... The biggest problem that I encountered was not the actual construction, rather it was dealing with that many cabinets in a small shop. I had to build in batches, finish in batches, etc... it's really a bunch of small production runs. I was almost insane by the time I finished the job (I have a fairly large kitchen), but it was definitely worth the effort. Some pics attached from a time whhen the job was still in progress.
Good Luck,
Michael
In the thread rasko linked to, JWW said "There are several companies that specialize in making the boxes to your custom sizes and will ship them knocked down for you to assemble." Does anyone have some sample links? I didn't see any in the original thread.
Rasko, tell me (when you're done) that it was fun and not excruciating. We really need new cabs!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
"There are several companies that specialize in making the boxes to your custom sizes and will ship them knocked down for you to assemble."
These guys are getting some good comments over at Breaktime:
http://www.scherrs.com/index.html
Thanks! Hmmmm, $175/lineal foot at the low end. I might have to build them myself!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
The first thing to acquire if you don't already have it is a finish nail gun. This is used to simply nail the boxes together using simple butt joints. It will save a great deal of time. Use this saved effort for the show surfaces and/or the design.Kitchen cabinets do not need complex joinery. What they do need is care of fit into the space.
One obstacle to doing it yourself is ensuring that the boxes are actually square. Sounds obvious, but doing it for one, two, three cabinets is no problem. Doing it for 20+ cabinets is time consuming, but certainly doable. And it's critical, even for face-frame cabinets for them to be square.
As much as I complain sometimes about the cabinets I install in new kitchens, very seldom do I have a problem with them being out of square. When I'm asked to make a couple of custom cabinets in addition to what's there, I take care to not only get the finish right, but also to get the carcass dead square.
As far as finishing guns, get a narrow crown stapler for carcase construction. You'll be glad you did.
Good luck!
Tim
You can do it. Just take your time. Here is my first attempt. Just now completing the kitchen after 6 months of weekend cabinet work. Started from s2s alder. 1000BF in alder + 500 BF in poplar for the painted pieces.
Dean
Buy all your hardware up front. Lazy susans, hinges, drawer slides, and if you can the knobs and handles. Saves a lot of rework.
Rasko, basic kitchen cabinets are probably the easiest thing there is to build. If you can make a box you can build a cabinet. The dimensions are fairly standard also and if you use standard dimensions, you can buy standard doors and leave the most difficult part to someone that has all the tools and equipment.
As for dimensions, just pop on down to Home Depot and get one of their cabinet catalogs or take a few measurements. For a small fee they design the kitchen for you and give you a set of plans with the cabinet dimensions on it.
If you want to, you can also register at eCabinetSystems and get their free software. It is really cool and they seem to have most of the bugs out of it now.
http://www.ecabinetsystems.com/
Steve
"You can either be smart or pleasant, I was once smart but now I'm pleasant. I like being pleasant better." Jimmy Stewart - Harvey
The comment about doing a test run first is great. I build out the laundry room as my trial run - learned a ton about assembly techniques and also confirmed my design decisions, hardware and finish choices. Bonus was I had somewhere to cook and clean while the kitchen was torn up.
I figured that the savings building my own cabinets paid to outfit the shop, so now I am set up to shift from building plywood boxes to furniture (at least as soon as I get the cabinet doors and drawer faces built!). Most critical tool: a good table saw to get those square box parts. Also valuable are a compressor and spray gun to finish - unless you go for pre-built. Once that I had the compressor it was easy to justify the 18ga. pin nailer, which made the box construction go really fast (tack 'em together, then screw or whatever is appropriate for your design). The pin nailer also is great for installing the trim, baseboard, etc.
To expand on another comment about the hardware - I installed all the drawer rails to the sides before assembling the cases, using a jig to set them consistently (I had 48 drawers so needed every trick I could come up with). Much faster than trying to hang all the glides later.
Be set for a long - and rewarding! - journey.
tkb, I agree with you about building a test cabinet. I have built boxes for years and today produce the same sort of simple box I always did....the fronts just got nicer. Stay at it you cant help but get good.......aloha, mike
Cabinets are relatively easy to do, assuming you can cut straight and square to the nearest 1/16th" on your tablesaw. Joinery is fairly simple, either butt joints or rabbets (I use rabbets).
There are plenty of books out there to help you get started. Key things I've learned is (1) make sure you include nailer strips in your design for mounting the cases on the walls, and (2) buy the hardware first.
Building good looking. flat frame and panel doors is more of a challenge for the average woodworker, especially if you want doors with multiple glass lites. This is a good place to have a dedicated door manufacturer do it for you. I've used Keystone wood products in PA for projects where I dind't want to mess with a zillion little mullions.
Good luck and go for it. Being able to look at your results will give you many years of pleasure.
Paul
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled