Building Your Own Kitchen Cabinets

An insurmountable task? I don't think so..

The  thought of building kitchen cabinets at first seemed rather formidable. I had built a number of bathroom vanities and  medicine cabinets, but the thought of a whole kitchen full of  cabinets was intimidating to say the least. The cabinet layout on the outside wall is 14 foot long. Along the back of the kitchen the cabinets span 10 feet. On the inside wall  it's 11 feet. (U shape) To complicate things the ceiling is sloped. It's 7'6" on the 11 foot side and 6'10" on the 14 foot side.

Two good sources of information were; Cabinetry The Woodworkers Guide to Building Professional-Looking Cabinets and Shelves. This book is published by Rodale Press Inc. There's a lot of tips and ideas in this book. What I found the most valuable is that it listed all the standard sizes for cabinets countertops etc. Not having any idea of standard dimensions for kitchen cabinets this book was a big help. The other book that I found valuable was Building Traditional Kitchen Cabinets by Jim Tolpin. This is published by Taunton Press, the editors of Fine Woodworking Magazine.  Tolpin is a professional cabinet maker. This book was a  valuable aid, in not only construction, but installation. 

Because  the floor in the kitchen was uneven, I followed the suggestion in Tolpin's book and built a platform. This worked out great in my circumstance in that I just built a platform where the base cabinets were to be placed. All of the  leveling, shimming etc. were done with the platform. The advantage to this in my circumstance is that once the  platform is set up, making the cabinets is comprised of making a series of boxes to rest on the platform. This saves the work of having to level and line up each cabinet individually.

Nancy  wanted traditional (face frame) white pine cabinets. For the  cabinet top, bottom and sides, I used luan veneered 3/4"  plywood. For the backs I used 1/2" fir sanded on one  side. I used the same 3/4" luan faced plywood for the shelves facing the edges with pine strips. The face frame consisted of 2" wide strips of white pine. The doors  are flat panel doors. The door frames pinned mortise and tenon The  drawer sides were 1/2" pine with 1/4" plywood bottoms.

Hardware consisted of recessed standards and metal clips. Drawer slides were Blum epoxy coated low profile style. Self closing overlay style hinges were used for the doors.

The  countertop was purchased. It's Formica, in the preformed  style with backsplash and rolled front edge.

I  butt jointed the sides to the top and bottom with #6 x 1  5/8" screws. I stapled the back on with a pneumatic stapler. Following Tolpin's suggestion, I used pocket hole joints to put together the face frame. Again following his suggestion, I used pocket holes to fasten the face frame to the carcass. Since the cabinets are butted together the pocket holes in the carcass won't be seen and the face frame has no marks. Where the sides were exposed on the two end cabinets, I resawed 1X6 pine and planed to a 1/4" thickness and glued to the surface. Rabett joints were used  on the drawers.

For finishing I'm using Lockwood's aniline dyes. Golden Maple gives the pine an early american color. I'm topping that off with Carver Tripp Super Poly water based polyurethane. The dye and urethane has it's problems with raised grain that has to be worked around but, the lack of odor and quick dry times make it worthwhile for me. Just a note here. Using a water based dye with a water based finish is tricky. The water based finish will re-dissolve the dye. This can cause splotching and muddy up the look of the grain in the wood. I've been able to manage pretty well with this but have had a lot of practice. The rule of thumb is that when you use a water based dye, use an oil based finish or vice versa.

In closing, my experience up to this point has convinced me that  the average woodworker could undertake this kind of project. You need good information, (the two books I mentioned) patience and some good tools. The tools don't have to be elaborate either. A tablesaw, a drill/driver, pocket hole  jig, sander and router with an assortment of standard bits  and you're on your way. These tools are typical tools in the  woodworkers arsenal.

Here are some photos:

This is the left side of the kitchen. This is a shot of the right side
If anything is obvious, the kitchen is long and narrow. And no, your eyes aren't playing tricks, the ceiling has a slope to it.

I built Pot Drawers which are just big drawers. You never have to reach to the back of the cabinet to get the pot you want. I used the standard Blum slides here from Rockler. They can handle 75 pounds, the drawer when full won't weight that much.

I built spice cabinets out of the narrow cabinets on each side of the range hood. I gave them fronts that looked like the cabinet door and used Accuride full extension slides. It's a handy place to have the spices and utilizes what would have been virtually useless space.

 

If you're still nervous, apprehensive or have questions, drop me an E-Mail, I'll try to help out.