Cabinet building advice needed

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I prefer frames and inset doors way far better'n Frame-less and overlay.
Insets are a tad harder to do but worth the look.
Spend some time on the Hafele website they have the world's coolest kitchen cabinet gizmos
Here: http://tinyurl.com/54fmuk


There are people who will sell you really great drawers already made up & you put your faces on 'em.
Like these guys http://tinyurl.com/5fmtfa

Get yourself a really killer rail and style set and some good panel raising cutters.

Not fer nuthin: Think about getting a good shaper and a widebelt sander. This'd be a nice time to look at a Slider too.

If you are going to go through all the effort and want the Euro hinges instead of the butt hinges get the ones that open the full 160-Degrees.

[Joe Chritz]

I had an old post with a bunch of "lessons" I have learned over the last few kitchens. A search will get some great ideas on construction and finishing.

In a nutshell. Pocket screws are rocking for cabs. I use them the assemble the face frame and screw the frame on. Finished ends are a 1/4" ply skin or for fancier an applied raised panel. Boxes are assembled with screws through the sides, no dadoes. I am thinking about using a combo or cleats for alignment, at least on the bottom.

My personal tastes only on the rest here so take it FWIW. Birdseye is nice looking but probably lost on large panels. Curly maple looks nicer in larger panels in my opinion. I really like walnut rails/stiles with curly maple panels. If you want max class, inset doors with beaded face frames are the bomb. My kitchen is my first project but when I redo it that will be how it is done.

I will be posting a drawer finishing question after this in the finish section. I still haven't found a method I like for finishing them.

Dive right in but be forewarned it is a giant project.

Joe

[David Peters]

As an aside, I just had my first real encounter with Blumotion recently on those aforementioned Ikea cabinets in the laundry room. It took me about, oh...just a few minutes...to walk quickly to my computer and order them for all the cherry vanities and cabinets I had built and already installed in the addition. No question, they add that extra special touch of quality. Worth the investment.

I used the Blum Tandem slides with my new entertainment center piece, and although they work fantastically once installed, I have some serious concerns about the hardware's durability over the long haul.

As several 'Creekers pointed out rather graciously on the thread, when you build fine furniture you want it to last for generations. After hearing everyone rave about the Blum hardware I thought it would be a suitable choice.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I was disappointed when installing it. Many of the components are not only cheap plastic, but they seem to be inaccurately machined, and don't have confidence-inspiring stops. The fit and finish of the "joinery" leaves much to be desired, although this is mitigated by the fact that they are unseen, living underneath the drawers. Finally, the spring mechanism that provides the closing force has the thinnest springs I've ever seen outside of eyeglasses.

Again, I might be in the minority, I just don't have a lot of confidence that this hardware is going to last the "generations" we would all hope it to.

As an aside, does anyone know of a higher quality drawer slide? Or is Blum considered top-of-the-line?

[David DeCristoforo]

I have to agree. While Blum is (IMMHO) the "best of the lot" I am not too impressed with the "Tandem" line either. The cheesy plastic "fixing clips" and "Blumotion" device will probably not withstand the "test of time". I used to buy the "original" Hettich "Quadro" glides that were the pattern for most of the undermount glides currently sold. They were all steel (bearings, retainers, everything), very "heavy duty" and were attached to the drawer sides with screws, not the plastic clips. Of course, this made them awkward to install because the screws had to be run in from the bottom after the drawer was in place and it also made it difficult to remove the drawers. But the hardware was awesome. Completely silent operation and very smooth. The newer "Quadro" glides have all the same kind of plastic "bells and whistles" that the Blum stuff has. These days, we seem much more concerned with "features" than with long term viability. "Why" is a whole 'nother thing......

[Sam Shank]

I second the motion on using prefinished ply for your boxes. Great stuff. I will never go back the the unfinished.

That is a great price on slides that look identical the the Blums. I got mine for about $30 total from ahturf.com - a pretty good price, but not as good as those from csh

I'd also suggest using pre-finished ply for the boxes. It's pricey but it will save you huge amounts of time, material and hassle since you dont have to finish the inside of the boxes.

One other recommendation I'd make is to use the Hettich Quadro IW21 drawer slides with the soft-close feature. You can get them from Custom Service Hardware http://www.cshardware.com/ and save about 1/3 on the cost over the Blum slides mentioned in the DVD.

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

Jim, I've built several kitchens and over a dozen bathroom vanities. Not enough to consider myself an expert but a tad above the novice level. When I first got into woodworking, I bought a mountain of woodworking books and recently gave them all away on this forum. The only book I kept was Jim Tolpin's "Building Traditional Kitchen Cabinets" by Taunton Press. I read it (and still read it) like The Bible. He makes the seemingly daunting task of building kitchen cabinets look easy.

As for hardware, I used Blum cup hinges on my own kitchen built in 1996 and have had to replace around 1/2 a dozen. Perhaps this is just normal wear and tear but I'm not impressed. I used the slides too and they are just OK. I've since found Accuride slides and although they are pricey, I believe them to be worth every penny. Good luck.

[jim gossage]

WOW! its going to take me a month to digest and understand all this excellent advice. the creekers really stepped up to the plate to help on this one. i am comforted to hear that its not a completely stupid idea. our current kitched lowers have large slide out drawers that i really like - as recommended by others - and i will likely replicate them....though the slides stink and half have broken where the plastic anchors them to the back of the cabinets. what about the fronts? i have a 16" minimax band saw and was thinking of resawing the veneer for the cabinet faces if i can find some nicely figured wood. is that a reasonable thing to do, or should i make them from solid wood? thanks again for your recs.

[Steve Clardy]

Jim. I suggest making all of your cabinet face frames, drawer fronts and doors out of solid wood.

[Craig Thompson]

Hey Jim,

Got to love this site huh... plenty of help and insight. I have to throw my 2 pennies in too. I agree with Steve in thinking that cabinet faces should be solid lumber. Many say I am nuts for doing so, but all the kitchens I have built are with 3/4 ply boxes, backs included. Makes for a solid cabinet, and dreamy installs, no sagging, no twisting, etc. I have had good luck with the blum hardware we use. Even in the blum line, there are some that dont hold up as well as others. We use the T7550 clip top (concealed series), and the 39C (compact series), I will no longer use the 38C's.. . I have had to replace too many of them. Although the plastic is 'hoaky' on the blumotion slides, I have yet to have to replace any.

Have fun with your project.................

[fRED mCnEILL]

I think the key to a spectacular kitchen is to design it around the way you live. If you currently live in a house/apt,. etc. there will be things you like and dislike about what you have. Build on that for your new kitchen..

5 years ago we did a kitchen reno in our house where I built the cabinets,laid the hardwood floor, finished the cabinets, in other words did almost EVERYTHING.

First of all we decided to renovate the kitchen to ENHANCE the way we lived. We basically lived in the kitchen so we used that fact and built on it.For example, we found that when we had company most of the time a lot of the people would congregate around the kitchen area(small as it was) probably because they wanted to spend more time with my wife(who is a good cook) rather than me. lol. So we decided to enlarge the kitchen by knocking out a 1/2 wall between the kitchen and a small family room creating a big kitchen including a fireplace (Like a great room). The end result is that people STILL congregate around the kitchen but now it can accomdate them.

Another thing we did was LOOK at a lot of show homes, renovated homes etc. where we got a lot of good ideas. For example, we went to a Show of Renovated Homes display where we noticed the kitchen had vitually NO cabinets with shelves and doors, instead there was almost exclusively drawers. When we asked the homeowner about that she replied "honey, I'm too old to be down on my hands ands knees looking for something at the back of the cupboard". So we did the same. My wife LOVES it.

Another thing we noticed (in a magazine ) was deeper than normal countertops. Most counters are about 26 inches deep because cabinets are built that are 24 inches deep. We built 24 inch cabinets but pulled them out from the wall 6 inches and added 6 inches to the counter depth thus increasing the countertop size by 25%.

As far as using a kitchen designer, we did use one but only to go over our plans in order to ensure we weren't doing something obviously wrong. She made one suggestion and drew up our plans. YOU know better than anyone else what you want/need.

It has now been 4 years since we did this reno and my wife still comments occasionally how much she loves her kitchen. And people who see it for the first time are still wowed.

Good lick

Fred McNeill