Kitchen Cabinets before plywood?

[Mike Kelsey]

A curiosity question. Are there/ were there Kitchen cabinet makers who use just solid wood? Not that I want to go that route, just wondering how wood movement for one would be handled in a kitchen environment

[Aaron Berk]

I would imagine ppl used hoosier cabinets and such. Allot of open shelves too.

Remember back in the day not every one was as spoiled as we are now. The old farm house kitchens I've seen have always been tiny little places. Not allot of room for custom cabinetry.

Then there is always the pantry and cellar. Those 2 and a kitchen table are really all that was needed.
I can't recall to many folks from back in the day needing appliance garages and under cab lighting.

[phil harold]

Plenty of cabinets were made with solid wood back in the day
The carpenter would build the cabinets right onto the wall with cleats
How well it survived the kitchen environment was directly related to methods of construction
Usually the cabinets were one piece not module boxes that we install today
I have made a few when the owner requested, that wanted to recreate a rustic or old world charm, I cheated and used ply for drawer bottoms

[Peter Quinn]

There sure were cabinets before plywood, but mostly only in the homes of very rich people. There is a fantastic set of QSWO cabinets in the Breakers mansion in Newport RI, built late 19th century, floor to ceiling, mostly glass doors but some raised panel too IIR. THey seem to be much more like furniture, solid backs that are made of multiple boards which are gapped for expansion. Wood movement was accommodated in much the same way as any book case would be built. You see great built ins in many finer homes of the colonial period, just furniture nailed to the wall, one continuous frame as a facade, breaks where required in the case work for expansion or mobility, some probably were manufactured in situ by carpenters with hand tools.

There is a book called The American kitchen, 1700 to the present:from hearth to highrise, which illustrates the social evolution of women in America from colonial times to present. It contains quite a bit of information about the changes that have occurred in the American kitchen concurrent with changes to women's changing domestic situation and the general rise in wealth of American consumers. For most of our history save the last 60 years the average women's life was in reality spent largely in the kitchen, and that was very much her place. As such the kitchen's of old were always an accurate representation of the needs and means of the household, and of the technology of a given era. Read this book, you realize how privileged we are at this time. Under cabinet task lighting instead of tallow candles you made yourself, no ice to drag up from the river to keep your meat fresh, you don't have to spend half the summer making your own soap from fat and soda ash, and we certainly have more calories to consume these days. Who needed cabinets when they didn't have anything to put in them?

[Stephen Cherry]

, just wondering how wood movement for one would be handled in a kitchen environment

Frame and panel, moritse and tenon; it's been around for a while. I've got an old Fine Woodworking (I think it's called "joinery") book that details the joinery. Also, some of the Gottshall books give detailed drawings of reproduction cabinetry.

[Aaron Berk]

Who needed cabinets when they didn't have anything to put in them?


:D yeah that was my thinking as well. And only the rich and famous had cabinets.

[Rick Fisher]

Kitchens where typically much smaller.. Things like plates, pots, bowl.. all expensive by today's standards.. I have been in more than a few really old homes where doors where added to kitchen shelf units in the 50's ..

[Rick Potter]

We have traveled the country quite a bit, and taken tours of at least a hundred old mansions. One thing that the wealthy seemed to have in common was that the upstairs and the kitchen of the mansions were quite a bit plainer than the 'show' rooms downstairs. The very wealthy almost always had very plain workable kitchens, with painted cabinets and such. After all, they never spent any time in there anyway.

Rick Potter

[phil harold]

On remodels/additions that I have done of small house (600-800sqft) houses built pre and post WWII the kitchens were small and made of solid wood most the sides and shelves were 1x12s face framed with 1x2 and raised panels doors later houses of
similar size (mid 50s-60s) had plywood doors and sides
There was also steel cabinets but mostly in larger houses than these starter homes of the 40's

[Richard Shaefer]

At the time, it was much, much cheaper (and hence more popular) to build sparse shelfs in a dedicated pantry room than to have kitchen cabinet storage. Finish carpentry has never been cheap, but mass produced wares usually are.

[Ryan Hellmer]

Frame and panel is the easiest/best way to do it in my estimation. I built my kitchen cabinets out of locally sawed red elm. Since I couldn't get matching plywood I built the exposed ends as frame and panel. Looks fantastic and they are plenty strong/stable.

Ryan