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