Advice on this built in

[Jeff Monson]

Friend asked me to do a small built in for his cabin. They removed some type small furnace that was installed before the rock veneer. I wanted to build a basic cabinet with a narrow face frame so I could have some scribe to work with but the highs and lows from this rock face are 2 1/4" in the worst places, pretty much ruling out a 3/4" face frame (meaning if you look from the side 3/4" wont cover the hills and valleys of the veneer). Just looking for some different options for construction that will allow me to fit it correctly.
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[Jamie Buxton]

The furnace was a simple rectangle with no scribing, right? That's how I'd build the cabinet: simple rectangle with no scribing. The friend lived with that for years, so should be fine with that for the future.

Don't make the job more complicated than it needs to be.

[Joe Calhoon]

Agree, scribing into rocks never looks good.

[Jeff Monson]

Good advice

Don't make the job more complicated than it needs to be.

[Zachary Hoyt]

Because the rocks are arranged in such tall skinny piles they will never look "right", because if they were load bearing actual pillars they would not be strong. There's a pizza place in town with 4x4 porch posts with fake rocks around the lower half, which is a more extreme case of why it looks wrong even though it isn't actually. Someone told me once that that is why door trim always has the top overhang the sides, even though there is no actual load on it. I concur that making the frame simpler would be the best option.

[Kevin Jenness]

scribing into rocks never looks good.

I wish I had a picture to show of a chair rail above wainscoting scribed into a massive rock chimney wall in a modern Lake Champlain mansion. It evoked the nearby shoreline, and to my eye was the exception that proved the rule.

[Joe Calhoon]

Ideally the rock goes in after the woodwork and even then a small stand-off is good.
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[Tom M King]

The first house I built here (1974), I scribed the wood to the stone chimney. We have an abandoned rock quarry, so I built a lot of stone chimneys with it. That first house was the last house I scribed anything to the stone. After that one, all others had the stone laid last. Joe is correct.

In this case, good luck.

[Larry Edgerton]

Another simple option is to tuck point mortar between the cabinet and the rocks. Looks better in most cases and is simple. Can be done ahead of time with a temp board installed where the cabinet will be if room is tight, let cure, remove board and install cabinet. I usually do mantles in this way.

[Tom Bender]

I would extend the cabinet sides (in solid wood) out past the stone and install inset doors.

[Paul F Franklin]

Another simple option is to tuck point mortar between the cabinet and the rocks. Looks better in most cases and is simple. Can be done ahead of time with a temp board installed where the cabinet will be if room is tight, let cure, remove board and install cabinet. I usually do mantles in this way.

This is what I would do. Quick job for a mason and most of them are pretty good at getting a decent match to existing mortar.