Kitchen cabinets - buy or build?

[Gene Thayer]

Like probably a lot of others in this mental illness/er/hobby, I started accumulating tools & equipment (for my garage shop) under the guise of remodeling my kitchen & saving tons of money. My house is 40 years old & the kitchen was pretty worn out. I've just retired, but in my working life I was on the road 3 - 4 days a week, so only weekends were available for the work. After a lot of planning & research, I decided to reface the existing cabinets & add touches like pull-out shelves, new drawer boxes with full-extension drawer slides, etc. I ended up making all new face frames & cathedral raised panel doors, which turned out great. We sprung for new granite countertops & backsplashes professionally installed. This has taken me about 3 years to complete, my wife is thrilled with the results, and I have a shopfull of great equipment. I most certainly did NOT save any money, but feel I have a kitchen that's unique and exactly what we wanted. If I were to try this today, I'd certainly buy the carcasses from Ikea and build my own face frames & doors and make sure I had plenty of time for the installation.

[Lee Bidwell]

Another vote here for refacing what's existing if possible or for building doors and drawer faces on bought boxes. I'm in a similar situation as you (2 year old son, pregnant wife, postdoctoral fellowship), and refacing is the route I chose. In my case, my wife wanted painted cabinets, so it was easy to just add new doors and drawer fronts. I also enlarged an island and added a raised breakfast bar, in addition to non-woodworking stuff like new tile backsplash and new appliance installs.

From this:

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To this:
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My son was 6 months old when we did this remodel, and we were only without kitchen for about 2 weeks between my tearout and the countertop install. Even 2 weeks is a long time with young kids in the house.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making things myself. It's just that, of all the things I do in the shop, breaking down plywood and assembing plywood boxes is my least favorite. With limited time, as Van suggested above, I'd rather have my handiwork shown in the form of doors and drawer faces than in cabinet boxes.

Lee

[David Gutierrez]

I will argue for building them yourself. If you use pre-finished ply you should be able to get the cases built & hung in a few weekends. The counter tops, sink, fixtures & appliances can then go in and you have a functional kitchen for the most part. Build the drawer boxes next & things are fully functional. The doors & drawer fronts can take however long to get the finished look but the kitchen is usable so management is happy.

Why do not leave the existing kitchen in place and build all the new cabinets. Then demo the kitchen and replace the cabinets? that way you minimize the down time.

[Paul Johnstone]

Hey OP.. Why not make a stand alone cabinet, like an entertainment center, wardrobe, etc.. That will give you a sampling of what you are in for, without a huge commitment. You say you have little experience with plywood projects.

I intend to redo my kitchen, and make all my cabinets out of solid wood. I am sure it will take over a year to completely finish it. I plan on doing about 3 pieces at a time, installing, then doing the next section. I am fortunate that my wife is very patient and supportive of me when I do woodworking. She wants me to do this.

One final point.. You mention that you are in med school now.. Are you sure you are going to be in the area when you graduate? It would really be a nightmare if you graduated, had to relocate, and had only a partially remodeled kitchen done.

[Larry Fox]

If you have time and are so-inclined I vote for build. I did my kitchen back in 2007ish (thread below) and am currently in the planning stages on one for my parent's house. As others have pointed out, it does require an extraordinary amount of time but it is very rewarding. One suggestion I will make though is to do something smaller like a vanity as a "test" to discover the ins and outs of cabinet building. Doing a kitchen is nothing more than building a bunch of small boxes. Some suggestions that I will make that will save you tons of time;

1) Used pre-finished-ply. Can't stress this enough. You do NOT want to be trying to maneuver a spray gun around inside a cabinet or facing 32 * number of sheets * number of coats square feet of finishing.
2) Have someone else make the drawers. Unless you are proposing making really fancy drawers with hand-cut half-blind dovetails you can buy a very good quality drawer to your specs delivered to your door WAY cheaper than you can do it yourself. Drawers like you see in a normal kitchen are commodities and there are shops out there that are setup to make 1,000 an hour. IIRC my kitchen had 19 drawers and I did all the stock prep, machine cutting of dovetails, assembly and finishing. This process took me a month. Save yourself a month!
3) Make sure you have a place to store all this "stuff". Once assembled they take up a lot of space.
4) It would really help to be able to spray and you need to make sure you have space to dry all that stuff you are spraying
5) Plan your work to avoid as many "changeovers" as you can. For me, it was really "expensive" in terms of time to switch from plywood mode to solid wood mode to finish mode back to plywood mode etc. Being more efficient with things like that is one of the key takeaways I had from my project.

It is a very rewarding project.


http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...one&highlight=

[Jake Elkins]

If you have time and are so-inclined I vote for build. I did my kitchen back in 2007ish (thread below) and am currently in the planning stages on one for my parent's house. As others have pointed out, it does require an extraordinary amount of time but it is very rewarding. One suggestion I will make though is to do something smaller like a vanity as a "test" to discover the ins and outs of cabinet building. Doing a kitchen is nothing more than building a bunch of small boxes. Some suggestions that I will make that will save you tons of time;

1) Used pre-finished-ply. Can't stress this enough. You do NOT want to be trying to maneuver a spray gun around inside a cabinet or facing 32 * number of sheets * number of coats square feet of finishing.

It is a very rewarding project.


http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...one&highlight=

Thanks Larry for this. One question - does using pre-finished ply eliminate (or diminish) the requirement for a sprayer, which I don't have? Fantastic looking kitchen, btw.

One final point.. You mention that you are in med school now.. Are you sure you are going to be in the area when you graduate? It would really be a nightmare if you graduated, had to relocate, and had only a partially remodeled kitchen done.

Paul - this is one of my concerns, for many reasons. I am selfish enough to not like the idea of spending what little time I have building something just to "give" it away later. I plan (hope) to stay here for residency, but that really is not entirely within my control. But the problem I have is that my current kitchen is so horribly awful (I can't stress this enough), that I am sure it will be an eye sore to all but the most ambitious DIYer buyer. When I bought the house, I planned on doing this earlier. I even bought the walnut I was going to use (600bf at about 0.60/bf), but somehow the number of prime boards dwindled significantly in the past few years.

I really like the advice about a stand-alone, smaller project. Hints have been dropped for a pantry for the kitchen, maybe this is a great place to start. Thanks!

[frank shic]

great advice on using prefinished plywood.... if you can get it. i mainly use melamine but when i get ready to do this next kitchen i'll probably be using prefinished plywood. another option for quick drawers is to use a metal box system like blum's metabox or tandembox. they go together quickly, give you more room and install like a charm.

[terry hansen]

I picked the build route, used prefinished ply for boxes, & drawers, cherry for face frame, doors & drawer fronts, since I do the cooking I was able to make it exactly how I wanted. I have since looked at ikea boxes & would go that route if I was moving in less than 5 to 10 years. That said I used pocket screws for cabinet boxes and drawer boxes; really simplified things & you don't see them. Bought a Sommerfield 35mm jig ($100 or so) for euro hinges - best $ I ever spent. Bought Blum hinges, drawer slides, and cabinet feet with levelers from ww hardware in MN. The cost of that stuff adds up fast. I made boxes and hung and set - then took 9 months to do doors drawer fronts etc. would I do it again? Not if I had to pay top $ for hardwood, I got a deal on end run cherry 750 to 1k BDF for $500. Bottom line - draw up plans, price at lowes & Ikea & wherever, price lumber and hardware and pulls & glue and screws - then determine what your time is worth and most importantly what new tools you can justify buying (they don't count in total cost) and how long your significant other will allow an unfinished project. It really isn"t difficult just time consumptive, and you do learn a lot about staging projects and mass construction. Whatever - have fun as it's a hobby not a job.

[Brad Gobble]

I've been building cabs on the side for 6 years now. With an engineering background I am very process driven and recently have been measuring myself closely. To make it worth doing you need 3 things:
1. A quality table saw with a solid fence and enough infeed/outfeed to do sheet rips (17' total)
2. A router lift or shaper that can handle the large bits to make your door profiles
3. Some place to stage ALL completed cabinets prior to installation
On my most recent build of 18 linear feet of upper cabinets built with solid maple doors and shop-grade maple ply carcases it took me 40 hours from the time I carried the first sheet into the shop until the last door handle was installed. I did 3 cabinets total, and added two end-shelves to increase complexity. I finished the cabs natural with water based acrylic-poly using a foam roller for the first 2 coats and brush final.

I work full time for a mega-corporation, so I started this Friday night and was done Tuesday evening. Yes, Monday and Tuesday were long days! I did not use high-end hinges, but used good 'nuff ones from Ebay (avg cost per hinge $1.20; handles were $1) Total cost in materials was $370 (sheet goods, hard wood, fastners, glue, sand paper, and poly).

newcabs.jpg

If you can only work on this 2 hrs a night you must have a shop where you can pick up where you left off... you be at for a year but you'll love the satisfaction. Especially worth it if the activity brings you peace of mind after a tough day of looking at other people's orifices!!

OR you could study more, get done with med school, and then hire this kind of work out while you make high end furniture ....

[Brad Gobble]

Note: the 40 hours includes installation but not clearing of the space to install (had the kids do that ... one good thing to having teenagers!)

Meant to add: I looked in to the IKEA stuff ... the gang is right about their hardware, good stuff. I am researching some of the wholesale - only flat pack company (cabparts.com, etc) and will post when I know more.

[robert micley]

do not do this if you are in med school. do a sinle furniture project-- case closed

[Steve Griffin]

Excellent advice here, so I'll keep just comment to the "prefinished" interiors.

Since I spray my cabinets and assemble them ahead of time, I find the "pre-finished" ply everyone is jumping up and down about to be no advantage at all. Takes seconds to spray the interiors with the face frame. It's definitely faster than masking off interiors. Drawer banks only need partial interior finishing anyway.

Even easier than ply is to use melamine. If I use "maple" or "almond" melamine, I don't even worry about overspray. If the interior gets a little rough with finish, take 10 seconds and buff it with steel wool....

Now if you choose to prefinish face frames before attaching to the boxes, then using prefinished ply or melamine makes more sense. I find this method has two downsides--besides the faceframes being awkward to handle, I loose precision with my custom fit inset doors. I like to fit the doors after the faceframe is locked into place on the box.

And yes, if you got the tools and time, you should do your own kitchen!

-Steve

[Roger Bullock]

You have been given some pretty good woodworking opinions here so I'll put another spin on things by giving a real estate investment opinion. The first question I ask myself before making any final decision when it come to the house is "Will this help in the resale of my house and if so will I get a return on my investment?" You purchased the house with the existing cabinets, would someone else? What would a prospective home buyer looking for an identical home like yours expect to find as far as cabinets go? If you're not sure, contact a real estate agent and ask them about resale or even go view other homes to see what buyers are looking for in the homes they purchase. If you find that replacing your cabinets will help you sell your home faster and for a good return on your investment, by all means consider the build or purchase option.

[Jeff Monson]

I cant think of a better reason to expand your woodworking horizons, I'd build no question about it. My 1st kitchen was about 4 years ago, it was in a house we thought was our last. Well the lolm decided 2 years later it was time for a bigger place. The major selling point in our house was the kitchen.

When I started, I made a couple of uppers to see if I could handle it, I just kept going from there on out. Finished all the cabinets and then demo'd the kitchen. Took me 1 week to do the demo and install the cabinets. I have done 3 kitchens since and they get a little easier every time.

Here's my 1st.

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[David Giles]

Put down that router and back away from the table saw. View your life as a balance of competing objectives and tradeoffs. List them in order of importance and the answer to your question will become clear.