measuring for doors

[James Evans]

I have an opportunity to get 450bf of curly soft and 450bf of curly hard maple lumber. I was thinking of building some cabinets for the kitchen out of it. But how do i figure out how much lumber it will take to build the framework and doors? all input is appreciated. Thanks, Jamie

[Michael Weber]

I recently built new cabinets and I used about 250 bf. 8 uppers and 8 lowers. Oh, that was just for the door and drawer faces since I built Euro style boxes with no face frame. Anyway I think 450 bf would be plenty unless there is a lot of waste or you have a big kitchen. I've only done one kitchen so don't take that as gospel. Wait until someone who actually knows what their talking about provides an answer.

[Joe Chritz]

If using raised panel doors I will just take the sizes of the door and add all that up. I then figure the face frame material and add that to the total. Add 25% for overage, mess ups and scrap and buy that plus a tad more.

For example:

A 36" sink base would would have two doors that are roughly 17 wide x 28 tall. The FF would be 127" total length at 1.5" wide. 1.5*127=254. 17*28*2=952. 952+254/144=8.375 BF.

Once I did that for all the cabs I would add on some waste factor, I like 25% since I always use left overs anyway.

200 BF is generally plenty to do a good size kitchen with lots of leftover.

ETA: Ignore me and use David's method. It runs about the same and is a whole lot easier.

Joe

[David DeCristoforo]

My "standard" formula is total cabinet face area plus 25% Don't forget to add for any finished end panels. This will get you pretty close regardless of whether you are building face frame or full overlay cabinets.

[Steve Clardy]

Ditto David's formula