Kitchen Cabinets Done

[Paul Shaffer]

Hello Fellow Creekers,
I thought I would share my latest (nearly) finished project, our kitchen renovation. I want to post the whole process of building them so others can learn from my experience because I have learned so much from others on this site. So please excuse the length of this post. I will split it into two, the first the essentials, the second the gory details for those that care.


We moved into our house four years ago and everything was updated, except for the kitchen. I swear the kitchen still had the original cabinets from when the house was built in 1966. So I promised my wife that we would redo the kitchen on the “5 year plan.” We started planning almost immediately, but financing (and births) forced us to wait a few years. We looked at BORG cabinets, which just couldn’t satisfy the woodworker in me. I checked Green Demolition’s website daily for a high end recycled kitchen that we could shoehorn into our space, but to no avail. I contacted custom shops in the area and the price was just not in our ballpark. So last winter I decided to build the cabinets myself. It was a truly enjoyable experience and I would happily build cabinets for any friends/family/coworkers that asked. But I am glad this project is finished, it was very stressful living in a construction zone.


Just because I know cost is a big question a lot of people have when considering building their own cabinets, I will say that all in, including lumber, freight, CNC, finish and hardware, these cabinets ended up costing ~$5000. Not cheap by any stretch, but certainly less than comparable truly custom made cabinets from premium, matched lumber.

Installation was done by my wife and I. It took a few days because of scribing all the wall cabinet end panels to the wall and all the furniture feet to the floor. The back of the island scribe to the tile floor was especially challenging, but came out well. The crown molding just went up this week and was custom milled out of stock picked to match Irion’s. This is one of the only mistakes I made during this process. I really should have ordered enough 6” stock from Irion for the crown molding as well, but I was able to get a good match with extra effort and cost at the millwork shop.

Overall, the transformation of the kitchen has been remarkable and my wife is exceptionally happy. We messed up the wall painting of the backsplash area. The original oil based paint behind old backsplash that we failed to prime, so latex paint is peeling off. Once we get it all scraped off and primed, we will install the mosaic backsplash tile and will finally be DONE.


Thanks for reading and thanks for all the experience and help provided by this forum.

Cheers,
Paul

[Paul Shaffer]

The wood was from Irion Lumber in PA and was shipped by freight carrier. This was the best decision I made on the whole project. I have ~200 bdft of “nice” cherry in the shed, but I wanted something special for MY kitchen. Irion supplied 100 bdft of 6” wide material for face frames, rails and stiles. And when they say they grade out sapwood, they mean it, there was not one inch of it in 200 linear feet. For the panels, Myron suggested a beautiful matched set of “catspaw” cherry from a single log. All the panels in the kitchen are from this set and any adjacent panels are either resawn myself or from sequential boards in the set. I was hesitant about the “catspaw” figure, but I couldn’t be happier with the end result. Anyone that wants flawless cherry lumber needs look no further than Irion.
Machining the rough lumber from the 6” stock on my 6” jointer and 12” lunchbox planer went well, although I went through a set of knives on each. I took my time and planned out every piece (over 200) of the face frames, rails and stiles to make sure that adjacent pieces came out of the same board whenever possible. The face frames are beaded using the Kreg router bits and a homemade sled (I can share details if people desire). It worked remarkably well and the face frames went together in a breeze with pocket hole joinery. One thing I did learn quickly was to make an initial light pass with the beading router bit climb cutting on the router table to prevent any tearout on the sharp edge of the quirk. If I did another kitchen full of beaded face frames, I would buy a baby power feeder to help make these cuts.


Next came the rails and stiles of the doors. For this my father kindly lent me his Freud shaker rail and stile router bit set. These bits worked flawlessly and every joint came together perfectly after just a few test cuts. I will mention at this point that every crosscut for this project was done on a sled on the table saw. I took a half a day to make sure it was perfectly square to the blade and it was time well spent, as every face frame, door and drawer came together square the first time.


Finally it was time for the panels. I fussed over the layout of the ~35 panels for more time than I care to admit (over a week) to make sure every pair of doors for example came out of sequential pieces in the set. Also, thanks to the phenomenal wide boards in the set, I was able to make all the panels from single pieces. There is not a single glued up panel in the whole kitchen. But how was I going to mill the up to 18” wide boards from rough to ½” finished thickness? For this I emailed The Woodery Lumber Co in Lunenberg, MA. Their website used to list the fact that they had a 30” facing planer and surfacers. After a brief email exchange, I loaded the wood up and drove out to their lumber yard. The 30” surfacing planer was one of the more impressive machines I have ever witnessed in my life, it’s a jointer on steroid with a maniacal looking steel finger feed mechanism. Between it and the planer, Steve made short work of getting my ~65 bdft of 4/4 rough stock down to ¾” in just a few minutes. It was well worth the cost. I let the boards rest in my shop for a while to acclimate, but thanks to the amazing stock from Irion, it moved very little. I had planned on getting it down to ½” for the panels using my drum sander, but after getting one panel to thickness I quickly realized I needed more help. So I emailed fellow Creeker Jeff Duncan who had a shop in town and asked if he could use his equipment to get it to final dimension. He quickly and kindly accepted and I drove the panels over to his shop. He is a great guy and we actually ended up talking for a good stretch. His large jointer, planer and wide belt sander quickly got me down to ½” final thickness and I was on my way. If not for the help of these two gentlemen and their industrial machines, I couldn’t have finished this project.
The doors went together quickly, were jointed and crosscut to precisely fit the face frames and I was off to finishing. I bought an Earlex 5500 HVLP rig and this was the second great decision. I can’t imagine hand finishing this quantity of material. I had made a test cabinet in my shop and tried several of General Finishes products, including the HP Poly and PreCat Urethane. I settled on the PreCat Urethane because I liked the way it sprayed and leveled out, although it was nearly indistinguishable from the HP Poly in all truthfulness on the finished product. If I had to do it over again, I would try to find a waterborne finish that “burns” in between coats. I spent more time scuff sanding, vacuuming and wiping down the pieces between coats than actually spraying it. It wasn’t hard, just time consuming and mind numbing work, not stimulating in the least. But it got done.


Then I made the third great decision of the job. I ordered the cabinet parts custom CNC’d from Hall’s Edge in Stamford, CT. I sent them the dimensions of my cabinet and hardware placement, they sent me back proofs of the CAD drawings and a few weeks later the part came flat packed by freight. The blind dado construct is essentially self-squaring and cabinet assembly went together in no time flat (even with a severely sprained knee and torn hamstring tendon working alone). Face frames got slapped on with a combination of pocket holes and biscuits. Hardware went in in seconds thanks to everything being predrilled. And the Blum hardware made aligning doors and drawers ridiculously easy.

[Mike Wilkins]

You did a masterful job on the cabinetry. I also hope to tackle my own kitchen, which consists of plywood boxes nailed together and plywood overlay doors, built in 1985. I did do a strip, sand and paint back in 2004 but the wife and I are ready to upgrade. Thanks a bunch for the inspiration. Fine job on the wood matching also.

[Gordon Eyre]

Excellent job on your cabinets. Love the cherry wood and the super match throughout.

[Mel Fulks]

Nice job Paul. Your design ,color ,and matches are high quality.Are you going to add support brackets unde that island top overhang ? I would be afraid to not have them .

[Jeff Heil]

Beautiful Work Paul! You can be proud of that hard work everytime you step into your kitchen!

[Paul Shaffer]

Thanks for all the kind comments. Mel, the island itself is about 26" deep, so even with the 12" overhang, there is ~70% of the weight of the slab over the island, not even counting on the strength of the adhesive. The island is anchored to the subfloor, so its not going anywhere. The granite installer assured me a half a dozen times that it would be fine, even with people sitting on the overhang, and that's his job, he has been in business for a good long time, so I trust him. I tested it by sitting on it at the very edge and it didn't budge, so...

Cheers.

[Mel Fulks]

I've heard of them snapping off ,but since it has been tested by butt, bye.

[Charlie Watson]

beautiful! I'm inspired to get going on mine.

[Matt Meiser]

Very nice. Wait until you see what that cherry looks like in a year!

[John Brad]

Very professional looking job. I have been looking at mine for a couple of years now and thinking they need replacement. You may have inspired me.

[Paul Cahill]

Lovely job - got it bookmarked!

Paul

[Gus Dundon]

Very detailed. This is a lot of work but probably fun to build. You must be very proud. Really great work!

[Paul Shaffer]

Thanks for all the kind comments. We finished the backsplash about a week ago and the entire project is done. We are having an open house next week to show it off, and I know its egotistical and not at all humble, but I can't wait. This really was a labor of love and a great source of pride. If anyone has any questions about any phase, from planning to CAD to construction and installation, please feel free to ask.

I am going through the post-build blues though. My list right now is crown and chair rail in the bedroom and a hallway shoe bench (painted). I find myself yearning for another project that requires premium wood so that I can order from Irion again and show off my new skills. Using plywood and paint just seems so... easy. Ah well, first-world problems and all.

Cheers and thanks.

[Jerry Olexa]

Very nice work, Paul...Your effort/attention to detail paid off..EXCELLENT results..BTW, I lived north of Boston a few years ago: N.andover, Mass..