Building Cabinets

I finally started assembling the cabinets today, working on the uppers. Uppers require the most care - they are at eye level, so everything needs to look really sharp, including the interiors.

We decided to make them 13.5 inches deep instead of 12. This will allow for both a 3 inch spice rack on the doors and a 10 inch lazy susan or pull out system. This is also what we estimated the max depth could be and allow my DW to be able to clearly see under them.

I needed to drill lots of little holes for the adjustable shelves (all the lowers will have pull-out shelves). I like to have them every inch, to allow for fine adjustment. I have done this on a drill press before with each hole marked, but it was a lot of work.

I put together the template system below, and I can drill all the holes in a cabinet side in about 3 minutes. The template is a piece of melamine-covered pegboard with a plywood straight-edge attached to it . I have self-centering bit and a drill aligner set up - almost impossible to go wrong.



Here are the holes...

Here are a couple of the cabinets assembled. The are held together with glue and nails I shoot in with my air nailers - 1/4 crown staples that are 3/4 long to attach the boxes. 1 inch long ones to connect the sides to the tops and bottoms.

I still need to attach the backs. I will do that with the same staples and poly glue. I will put 3 inch wide ledgers in the tops of the backs, just to ensure I have solid structure for attaching them to the walls. Theses will go in with screws.

This has ended up being quite a bit of effort. But I am getting custom cabinets for $2K instead of $12 to $15K - and I enjoy the work.