Looks like I'll be building a kitchen

[Matt Meiser]

My parents have talked for a couple years about a kitchen remodel which has grown to gutting the 1960's era kitchen/dining room addition on their 1860's era farm house. I finally got through to my mom that if I was doing the cabinets they had to hire a contractor to do everything else. I gave her the name of a guy we came close to having build us a house 6 years ago. Mom called tonight to say that his quote came in today and it was much much lower than we thought it could be. And they want to do the actual construction this fall meaning I'm going to be getting pretty busy soon. There's talk of building the mobile island right away because they'll be able to use it in their temporary kitchen plus it will give us all the ability to make sure we are happy with the design, hardware, etc.

[Bill Huber]

Well I guess you better get to planning, I know if it was my job to do a kitchen I would have to plan for the next 6 months before I start.

Good luck and I know you will do an excellent job.

[Jamie Buxton]

... if I was doing the cabinets they had to hire a contractor to do everything else. ...

Very smart move. You get to do the beautiful fun stuff, and the contractor has to do the nasty stuff -- demolition, upgrading the wiring and plumbing, framing, drywall, paint. Good call.

[Matt Meiser]

I had agreed to do the demo if my brothers could all be in town to help, but between vacation plans and a wedding, that's not going to happen so I'll even get out of that. :D

Bill, we've been doing rough design, but now its time to get down to business. I'm making her stick to stock sizes as much as possible which should help with the planning process.

[Jamie Buxton]

.. I'm making her stick to stock sizes as much as possible ....

Stock stuff? She may as well buy factory-built cabinets. One of the cool things about building a kitchen from scratch is that you get to build it exactly the way you want, unrestricted by what the production-line is churning out. For the single craftsman in a shop, building custom stuff takes no more time than building standard stuff.

[David DeCristoforo]

"Looks like I'll be building a kitchen..."

Noooooooooooo! Don't do it! Once you start building kitchens you can get trapped. It's like quicksand. Run... you fool!

[Mike Cutler]

"Looks like I'll be building a kitchen..."

Noooooooooooo! Don't do it! Once you start building kitchens you can get trapped. It's like quicksand. Run... you fool!

:D,:D,:D:cool:

You're killin' me David.;)

[Matt Meiser]

Stock stuff? She may as well buy factory-built cabinets.

Have you seen the junk the factories put out? ;)

[Art Mulder]

Painted or wood?

For something this size, I've heard of more and more folks getting prefinished sheets of plywood, which really takes some of the drudge out of the job. However, IIRC you've got a spraying setup, so maybe that is actually not a concern.

Have fun, and hope you can agree upon a good design!

[Bill Huber]

Matt, are you going to make the counter top or have it made.

What will it be made of?

[Matt Meiser]

Mom wants cherry, and flat door panels. Carcases are going to be prefinished maple ply and since the door panels are flat, they'll be 1/4" cherry ply.

She wants granite or granite-look tops so I'm not on the hook for those.

[Roger Jensen]

Just my 2 cents, but I recommend using 3/8" or 1/2" cherry ply for the doors and cut to fit in the slots on the doors. I think you get better cherry on thicker ply, you can control the fit in the slots and the doors feel more solid.

Roger

[Mark Hulette]

Mom wants cherry, and flat door panels. Carcases are going to be prefinished maple ply and since the door panels are flat, they'll be 1/4" cherry ply.

She wants granite or granite-look tops so I'm not on the hook for those.

Sounds nice!! I'd probably go with 3/8" or 1/2" ply for for the door panels, too. Just feels a little more substantial.

What about jumping in and making some concrete countertops for her? You could make it have a granite-look, too!! ;):D

Good luck and please remember to document as you have in the past.

[Matt Meiser]

Well, everything seems to be falling in place. They had a second contractor out this past week who they also really like. They've figured out how they are paying for it (notice I didn't say me...) and mom wants to know when I can come over and work with her on the detailed design. Dad's having surgery on Wednesday so I'll have about a week while he's in the hospital before she starts bugging me to get going.

[Jim Becker]

Matt, I did our mobile island first (it was the prototype for the cabinets, too) and it indeed, was an important part of our temporary "kitchen" in the great room while I was gutting the real one. Highly recommended!

[Matt Meiser]

Big day today as we ordered materials. They selected the contractor yesterday. We are all supposed to meet early next week to go over some details and for the contractor and I to ask each other questions about what we plan to do for this and that. I'm hoping to start making sawdust over the 4th with a completion date around the end of October.

I'm using all prefinished ply for the boxes which should save considerable time and effort.

I came to the realization that even though I have a big shop, this is a really big project. So we are having one of those PODS-type containers brought in to put out behind my shop for storage. When the kitchen is done it will get packed into the container and trucked over to my parents'.

[Dick Strauss]

Matt,
I just wanted to warn you that lots of PODS get broken into around here, especially at new housing developments. I guess the thieves hope that the contractors left their good Dewalt/Milwaukee tools in the box. The pod may just draw attention to your activity/shop. If you can and it is convenient, have them park it in a location that is not visible from the road so you won't draw any extra attention.

Take care,
Dick

[Matt Meiser]

Good to know. Its going to go out behind my shop where it shouldn't be real visible to anyone but the horses.

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

Matt, That's a daunting but rewarding project. On the plus side, I smell some tool upgrades in your immediate future?
My first kitchen build I had the same space constraints problems you did. But then I read fellow Creeker Jim Tolpin's book "Building Traditional Kitchen Cabinets" (http://www.amazon.com/Building-Traditional-Kitchen-Cabinets-Tolpin/dp/1561580589). Many many great tips and insight including building them in reverse. That is, using story sticks, build the face frames first, followed by drawers and the carcasses last. I recommend the book highly. Good luck.

[Jim Foster]

As another poster mentioned Jim Tolpin's book is very good. Another book that is good also is Robert Yoder's "Cabinetry" book.

Have fun.

PS: Sticking to standard sizes is not bad in most cases (if your building traditional style cabinets) because it offers a lot of variation and if you need any accessories in the end, they will fit.

[fRED mCnEILL]

I have to agree with Jamie on stock sizes.

I do like the idea of the pod. When I did our kitchen I had cabinet carcasses in the living room because there wasn't enough room in the shop.

Although the norm is to build cabinets 24 inches deep to maximize plywood usage you can increase the area of countertop by 25% simply by spacing the cabinets 6 inches out from the wall. Cabinets are still the same size but the countertop is obviously bigger. And due to the fact there is a dead space of 6 inches we took advantage of that by building a knife rack that extends down through the countertop. Very handy. The other thing we did which my wife loves are toe kick drawers. Great for big flat items like a frying pan cover.

Good luck

Sounds like fun.