Building my own Kitchen Cabinets: Questions

[Jefferey Scott]

Hi everyone,

My wife and I are embarking on a kitchen remodel. We have priced kitchen cabinets and the quotes came in much higher than budget allows for the quality we want. I had toyed with the idea of building them myself but decided I couldn't because all I have is a two car garage shop and no place to store the cabinets during construction. Then I hit upon an idea that I wanted to ask all of you your opinions on. I am thinking of renting a POD or other mobile container and parking it in my driveway during construction. This could store the cabinets during the various phases of construction and also store materials in it as needed. It gets pretty hot in the summer here and I'm wondering whether you think that the heat or humidity would affect the wood to any degree? I'm not sure it would be much worse than if they were stored in my garage during construction. Can you see any pros or cons to my plan? The bottom line is I can build the kitchen we want within budget and not sacrifice quality.

Thanks!

Jeff

[Scott T Smith]

Jeff, occasionally you can find a place that rents surplus shipping containers (Conex boxes); and some of them have insulated containers (originally used to ship frozen food world wide). You might check to see if any of those are available; they will stay much cooler than a Pod.

[Thomas Bank]

Friends used a POD when they were moving cross town. First, the cost was pretty high - IIRC about $570 for the week and the move (less than twenty miles). Second, the construction of those things is almost disposable. I was more than a little concerned about it falling apart due to some of the heavy stuff they were moving in it.

I just had a similar situation where I had to move stuff out of the way for a couple days while doing some work. Had a friend who had an old U-Haul van he used to transport equipment for his band. For the cost of a restaurant gift card (at my discretion, not asked for by him) and some baked goods he had no problem loaning it to me for a week. It was sitting unused for him anyway. You might check with friends about enclosed trailers and such they might be willing to loan you.

[Jeff Heath]

The humidity surge can really cause problems for your cabinet build. My shop is climate controlled for a reason. In the summer, here in the midwest, the humidity changes can cause the MC of wood species to soar quite a bit. This causes problems with expansion, etc.... as well as finishing concerns when you are ready to do that.

Is there a place inside your house where you can store them temporarily up against a wall, or something. In my house, the dining room gets used quite sparingly.......just sayin'. Hate to see you go to all that work to save money, only to have it all get wrecked by a humidity and heat wave.

Jeff

[Peter Kelly]

I'd just cut all the parts for the boxes, make the doors, drawers, end panels, etc, do all your finishing and just leave everything unassembled until you're ready to install. A stack of cabinet parts takes up far less space this way.

Those POD things are over priced and not all that secure.

[John A langley]

Jeffrey - You have not said how extensive the remodle is. Sounds like you are planning on ripping everything apart and then building the cabinets. If we are not changing any walls or windows I would go ahead and build the cabinets before we do anything in the kitchen. Once I have the cabinets builts then we tear into the kitchen. We do mostly face frames so I can give you our process on that. First thing we build is the face frames, second thing we build is all the doors and drawer fronts. These are pretty easy to stdck against the wall in the garage. Then we will make the drawer boxes and cut out the boxes for the cabinets. AT thhis point you could remove all your uppers, built and reinstall your new uppers. And then likewise with the bases. If we get a set of kitchen cabinets done before the owner or builder is ready for them I put them in a local storage. I have not had any issues but I can't remember a set being there very long or during climate changes so to speak. If you were to have to build the cabinets either first or last and then store them I can't seeing that storing them in a storage space would hurt the boxes, the issue could be with the doors. You could always build the doors last I've seen contractors go in and rip a kitchen out and the poor home owner had to wait months for their cabinets. Not a good deal. Planning is the key. There are also some good companies out there that you could outsource your doors and drawers to and also a few that will do the face frames and cut the boxes for you. If you do the Euro in some parts of the country they are called full-access, it is even easier I have KCDW and would bbe willing to help you with your layout. Good luck with your endeavor.

[Lee Schierer]

I thought about building my own cabinets and decided not to. You need space to store the raw materials, Complete plans for each cabinet you plan to build in advance so as to not waste a lot of , lots of time to build and finish them and a place to store the completed cabinets until you are ready to install them. Our cabinets came prefinished with a better finish than I could apply myself and all I had to do was install them. Price wise, when I consider the hours I didn't spend making them I think the good quality cabinets we bought have held up as well as and I would have made. At the time we remodeled, I wasn't sure we would retire in this house so I didn't have the emotional investment in the cabinets either.

[Clint Olver]

I build cabinets in a 20' X 18' shop. I build all the doors and panels first, spray them and store them. Next, I build all the drawers, kick plates and trim, spray and stack them. Last, I cut all the cabinets parts, assemble, spray and stack them... or in your case, move them inside. You have to begin with a clean, organized, well thought-out shop. In Europe, there are professional cabinet shops half the size of yours. There is no reason you can't build your own cabinets.

C

[trevor adair]

I am currently doing my own kitchen with only a 2 car garage. I will not repeat the sage advice you have gotten already (frames doors etc first) I will describe my method it may help you a bit. First we are fortunate to have a formal dining room that gets used twice a year so that was immediately re-purposed as transitional storage. I was not replacing walls, however i did take out a bulkhead and raise the ceiling as well as take out a peninsula and replace it with an island. This allowed me to build the island first and concentrate on a small area of the island the one wall of cabinets (pantry, fridge surround top cabinet and one other side cabinet) The disruption was minimal because I did the island first and the stuff located in the peninsula was put there. I then moved onto areas where I could build in sections before I took out the old (uppers first along one wall then the other, followed by lowers etc.)

Because it is my house and not for a client I was able to piece it out like this and allowed me to take my time and although it looks weird mixing the new with the old I will be done very shortly with minimal interruption, and more importantly it kept the LOML happy. Nothing says redoing a kitchen requires ripping everything out at once and replacing it all at once, it may be preferred but sometime you have to adapt

[Larry Prem]

I am with Clint on this. If you have the drive to finish the project, you will find the room to store the materials. The cabinets can be stacked to the ceiling in the garage. I'd worry more about getting the project completed in a reasonable amount of time.
Cutting the panels all at the same time before the boxes get assembled is key. Moving full sheets in a cramped shop is no-fun.

Just do it.

[Jefferey Scott]

I am with Clint on this. If you have the drive to finish the project, you will find the room to store the materials. The cabinets can be stacked to the ceiling in the garage. I'd worry more about getting the project completed in a reasonable amount of time.
Cutting the panels all at the same time before the boxes get assembled is key. Moving full sheets in a cramped shop is no-fun.

Just do it.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I definitely have the drive to see it through. I know I can build what I want, the way I want it will just take a little longer. I can store drawers and doors inside and maybe boxes in a Conex container which I got a quote of $115 a month for. I guess where there's a will, there's a way and there's a reason I have all these tools.

[Bruce Wrenn]

If you don't have a copy of Danny Proulx's book "Making Your Own Kitchen Cabinets," I suggest you get a copy. Build your boxes out of melamine, and use screws and butt joint to assemble them. (with melamine, you have no interior finishing. Only tack them together to verify your dimensions for face frames and doors. Remember that cabinets in the flat take up a lot less room. Build FF, doors, end caps, and drawer boxes. I would probably keep boxes in the flat until just before installation.

[Bob Frey]

If you have the desire it can certainly be done. I built our kitchen cabinets in my 14 x25 shop. Took almost a year to do in my spare time of some Sundays and some week nights. Cut all sheet goods and stack the components. I would build and assemble several upper cabinets or a single base unit at a time. I set up a 10x10 easy up tent with sides to use as a spray booth beside my shop to spray finish all my completed assemblies (or components and parts as needed). I would stack all the complete finished cabinets and bases on my rear screened porch/patio and cover them with plastic. When ready to install I took a week off work and sent the wife and kids on a weeks vacation. Tore the entire kitchen out, remodeled, replumbed, installed new hurricane rated windows through block walls, rewired, drywalled including cieling, painted, then installed new tile floor, then put the new cabinets in. Then installed black granite tile counter tops and tiled the wall backsplashes up to the top cabinets. New appliances, sinks lighting etc were added. Wife and kids came back a week later to a completely new kitchen. They were all refresh and wondering what I did with all my spare time while they were gone.

[Terry Sparks]

Hi Jeff, I too have space problems with my garage shop and storage for a full complement of kitchen cabinets will not wotk for me either. I'm in the planning stage of building my cabinets and in figuring out how best to deal with this, I just decided to build a section of boxes, doors and shelves at a time, install them and then start building another section and so forth. I'm going to end up with more of a modular type of cabinets but, that is something I can live with.

[fRED mCnEILL]

When I redid our kitchen I built the carcasses and stored them in the living room. We seldom use it anyway and there was lots of room.