Base Cabinets

I completed the basic boxes for base cabinets - the assembly went pretty much as planned.

The 1/2 pre-finished plywood works great here. Working with polyurathane glue is a bit harder than wood glue, since there is no "tack" to it, and it takes a few hours to dry. I re-enforced all the joints with 3/4" x 3/4" wood strips on the blind sides, which will act as supports for shims on the tops of cabinets and nailers for the trim on the bottoms.

Here is the front part of the upper corner cabinet:

I designed this cabinet to be only 10 inches deep on the sides instead of the standard 12. This changes the backs from 27 to 24.5 inches, allowing a full 48 inch wide window with trim. It also makes the back corner under the cabinet more visible.

This cabinet will hold a couple of "D" shaped lazy suzans that use almost the entire footprint.

Green Remodeling

Whenever possible, I try to incorporate Green actions into my remodeling.

Being from Oregon, we don't often associate politics with being environmental (discounting the extremists, etc.), we just think it's a good idea. I hope both political liberals and conservatives will practice "recycle, reuse, reduce". Many actions we can take are the simple or small ones, that ultimately add up.

Green elements of this kitchen remodel:

• Reusing the cabinets doors - the boxes are terrible, but the doors are in great shape. If we did not reuse them, we would donate them to the Rebuilding Center (see below)
• Adding 1 inch rigid foam insulation behind all cabinets - increases the R-value by 4.5, and adds one inch depth to the counter tops
• Replacing the old aluminum windows with energy star (Lo-E) ones
• We are keeping the soffits - insulating all of these
• Adding 12 inches of cellulose insulation to the attic, once the lighting is complete
• All the plywood I have bought is from Shur-way (see resources on the side bar). Beyond having really good prices and being very nice people, the materials are over-runs, slightly damaged, etc. If we buy these kinds of materials, they don't get land-filled.
• Install Energy Star appliances where we can
• And the biggest of all - we are recycling (remodeling) an older house

Once the kitchen is done, I have been considering adding solar to the house (it already has a passive design) to start that electric meter running backwards...

Resources:

• A good website for green info is Green Home Building.
• The Rebuilding Center - these are great people. I think it should be tourist stop for people visting Portland.
• http://www.energytrust.org/

Range Hood Module

Since I am building the range hood to match the cabinets, all we need to buy is the fan unit. I selected a Broan Power Module PM250, from NutoneSales.com (Nutone is a brand of Broan) for $90 + 12 for shipping.

The next best price I could find online was $130, and in-store for about $150.

It is a basic unit with 250 CFM, aluminum filters and a light. I read a TOH article on hoods, and they indicated that 250 should be fine for most applications, and if you get above 350 CFM, you can get other back-draft issues.

You can buy a mounting kit, but I decided to pass on it. The hood cabinet is custom anyway, so cutting the hole in the bottom to fit should not be a problem.

Here is a rendered image of how the hood cabinet will look:

Cabinets...

I think I will be doing a lot of posting on building the cabinets...

I completed assembling the uppers and bases, with the exception of the corner cabinets. Everything went together pretty easily - no problems. Once we get back into town, I should be able to get the corners, pantry and double-oven cabinets done in about 6 hours.

I have decided not to put the backs on cabinets (3/8" maple ply) until I have mounted all the drawer slides, etc. This should make that part of it simpler.

Continuing with building the cabinets

One of my favorite things to do is woodworking in my garage on a cool fall day. It becomes perfect if can listen to an Oregon State football game and also spend some time talking with my kids about the things that are important to them. Today was pretty close to one of those days.

I got most of the plywood cut for the base cabinets, and I plan on assembling them tomorrow. I should be able to get all of them complete in just a few hours. The dadoed face-frames and 3/4" cleat for assembling the boxes allows everything to go together easily.

We are flying off to Disneyland on Tuesday, so all this work stuff will to go on hold again for a week or so. I am looking forward to just relaxing and having fun with the family.

Back at it

Life is what happens when you are planning what you are going to do next: Two trips out of town for work and getting sick put a temporary stop on the kitchen. I haven't been been able to work on the cabinets for a couple of weeks.

I am looking forward to this weekend. I want to at least get the cabinet boxes complete and the kick-plate drawer assemblies done.

Here is the design for the kick-plate drawers. Basically, the structure will be 2x4 drawer bays with 3 inch drawers. The inset of the drawers will be only 2 inches under the cabinets - so that access will be easy. They will be almost 3 feet wide where possible, so we can store very long items.