Cabinets done and Reward

[William C Rogers]

I have finally finished my kitchen cabinets (almost anyway). I built a new house and part of the build I made my own kitchen cabinets. This has been a two year process as I sold my other house, moved, built a new workshop. Cabinet parts were in storage two different times. The last year I have been building and running my shop off a generator and an extension cord from my neighbor. I now have full electric in my shop. Moved into to the house a week ago. The kitchen cabinets are African Mahogany. I got the wood from Rockler when they had a wood of the month for $3.25 bf. I think I bought 300bf and used it all. 3/4 pre-finished ply where possible and African Mahogany ply where necessary. Blum soft close for hardware. The stain was ZAR brand mixture. I used gloss polyurethane first coat followed by satin polyurethane. The lower cabinets are mostly drawers except for the speciality mixer lift, cutting board and blind cabinet. I still need to install the LED under counter and upper cabinet lights. The painted cabinets are the laundry/pantry cabinets. They are made of soft maple and maple ply (I was initially going to stain them). The large cabinet (6'X8') has four pull outs each side. My cost for all the cabinets was around $9,000 which included a new Supermax 19-38 drum sander, new Ceros sander, and used MM FS 35 14 inch jointer/planer, Incra router table fence and new router lift. Not sure what this would have cost to buy as this is a lot of custom, but decided to reward myself with a new SawStop, two new Worlds Best saw blades, and the Infinity SawStop insert. The sad news is I bought the saw in April and still have not plugged it in. Everyone likes the cabinets, but no one except me gives a darn about my saw.
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[George Bokros]

Only one work STUNNING!

[Joe Bradshaw]

Cabinets look great. Let's see some photos of your shop. You will love the SS.

[William C Rogers]

Only one work STUNNING!
Thanks George
This is the first time I ever (and probably last) built cabinets. I did get some new equipment out of the deal, but confess there were times I wondered if I could get them done in time with building the house and weather last winter.

[William C Rogers]

Cabinets look great. Let's see some photos of your shop. You will love the SS.
Joe

Shop is a total wreck at this point. Hopefully I will get it somewhat organized next week. I would be embarrassed right now. I have been "installing" handles, knobs, towel racks for the last week.

[Joe A Faulkner]

William, excellent job on the cabinets. I don't think you could touch these from a customer cabinet maker for under 12K and I'm just talking about the kitchen, so kudos on using the savings to equip your shop. Laundry and pantry cabinets would probably go for more than the SS. Nice job. If you did this while building the house I'm guessing you didn't sleep much. Is that your shop building through the window in the second picture. Looks like a great facility.

[Rick Potter]

Cabinets look great. Did you spray the painted ones?

I was in the same boat with my SawStop. Bought it in April '13, and finally got it running April '14, after the warranty had run out. Glad there were no problems with it.

We moved into this house in 2006, and have been adding on, remodeling, building a shop, and are finally getting close to the end of the kitchen cabinets. Still got the closets to do. From where I sit, it looks like you made good time on yours.

Rick Potter

[Jim Matthews]

Nice Pantry.

Plenty of storage, plenty of walkway space.
I like the painted finish - brighter finishes look sharp.

Kudos

[Bryan Lisowski]

Great job!! I really like the mahogany cabinets.

[Dale Murray]

I would like to know more about your process, materials, construction, and finishing technique; your cabinets are nearly identical to what my wife wants. Her desire for new cabinets justified my 52" ICS!

BTW, I care about your saw too.

[Gary Pennington]

Bill,
Looks super! Congratulations on an excellent design and execution. I have the same SS, I'm sure you'll love yours. Did you by chance dovetail the drawers???? ;) ;)

g

PS: Let's see the shop!

[Justin Ludwig]

Bill,
Did you by chance dovetail the drawers???? ;) ;)


Looks like he did from the picture of the pantry pullout.

Beautiful cabinets, Bill. You definitely got your money's worth, even more so considering the cost of the tools was figured into that total. The satisfaction of building them yourself can't be tagged with a price.

[Joe Jensen]

The cabinets look fantastic. Love the reward too

[William C Rogers]

Well Rick I am glad someone thinks I made good time. I retired from work April '13, sold house in seven days out at closing. Panic, moving, storage, building shop, building house, and trying to finish the cabinets.
Yes, that is the shop in the picture. Like I said a total wreck at this point, so no pictures yet, will work on shop this week.
This is my first attempt at anything like this.

Dale, if you have more questions let me know.

Design
The cabinets were designed by me and my wife. I'm not one to do detailed drawings, just overall size and I start cutting as I go. We didn't want a lazy Susan, so did a cabinet with a Rev-A-Shelf blind cabinet insert.

My wife wanted shaker style cabinets which I didn't have bits for and glass panel in the top cabinets. At the WW Show Somerfield was there and guess I got sold on his tongue and groove cabinet system.

I wanted dovetail drawers so I bought the Incra LS fence. Soon learned the Incra was not the best to make 12" drawer dovetail and ended up getting a Leigh jig from Gary. All drawers and pull outs are dovetail construction.

Used pocket hole for the face frames (1 1/2") and also used them in the nail rails (maple) even though the nail rails were tongue and groove. Helped when dry fitting the cabinets. I used pre finished ply where I could.

Hardware
I used Blum soft close press in hardware for all hinges. I bought the Somerfield EasyBore to drill the 35mm and 8mm hinge holes. That worked great and didn't have one miss drill. Time I bought the bits and a jig for the drill press it only ended costing me about $0.50 a hole more and was well worth it, basically no set up. Pantry cabinets I used KV slides (I got 14 brand new pair from CL for $20. The kitchen drawer slides are Blum under mount (125 lb for larger drawers).
Kitchen doors are a 1 1/4 overlay, 3" rail and stiles. Pantry doors are 2" stiles with 3" rails and 1/2" overlay (1/2" overlay is not ideal with KV slides, should be larger overlay)

I used the Jet/Bessy framing blocks, but checked each door and face frame for squareness.

Finishing kitchen (mahogany)
Stain is ZAR brand from BM, mixture of Rosewood and Dark Mahogany.
Kitchen is poly. First coat is gloss poly to bring out wood grain followed by satin. Doors and drawer fronts were sprayed, FF brush. I used Sherman Williams Classic poly. (Could get locally instead of mail order).

Finishing pantry (maple)
Was initially going to stain, but paint was a better choice here. Paint was BM Impervo paint. Doors and drawer fronts were sprayed, sides and FF brushed. Two coats. You can't tell brushed from sprayed.

Major Tools bought
SuperMax drum sander. Able to get flat doors and stock. Incra LS system. Ceros sander (could have done without, but glad I bought). Leight dovetail jig. Infinity rip blade (this blade stood out for ripping stock). I wasn't looking, but ran across a MM FS 35 jointer planer so I could join wide boards for drawers. Cabinet clamps.

Tools I had
jet CTAS cabinet saw, Milwaukee 12" sliding miter saw, multiple routers,

Most hated. The upper corner cabinet. What a pain to get it right.