Final Sanding, Face Shelves and Drill Shelf pin holes.

I took yesterday off and went to the Sports Show in Anderson with our neighbors from Lake Almanor.  Had a great time and the show was pretty good to boot.

Today I finished facing the shelves with a 3/4"x 1 1/2" strip of alder.  I drilled shelf pin holes in all the cabinets that need shelves and did the final sanding on all 24 cabinets.   I finished about 4:00PM and then cleaned up the shop, vacuumed up all the sawdust (a full 33 gal bag) and got the shop ready to start making doors and finished ends.  Sanding is kind of like cleaning the toilets in my book of fun stuff.  Doors, drawer fronts and drawer boxes are next on the list.

The fan helped the glue dry a little faster.  You never have enough clamps.

Packing tape works if you can't figure how to clamp it.

The building process.

Sorry I've been asleep at the blog, but I have been busy building cases.  Today I will outline the building process and all the steps involved in building kitchen cabinets.

Design
Ordering sheet stock, board stock and hardware.
The computer program nests all 24 cabinets and produces cut sheets for the 22 sheets of birch plywood for the cases.  The first day in the shop consists of cutting case parts, labeling and stacking by cabinet number.

This is about half of the cabinet case parts stacked together by cabinet number.

Next comes Face frames. 3/4" Alder is ripped into oversize widths and then edge planed to remove all saw blade marks.  The face frame stock is then cut to size and stacked together by cabinet number.

The face frames are assembled with pocket screws.

Now we have a large stack of face frames.

Next comes the fun part, similar to the sheet rock stage of building a house when things start to take shape and you feel like progress is actually happening. 

This is the assembly stage of the upper corner cabinet.

A few days go by and my 7X14 trailer is plum full.

Now there is cabinets stacked everywhere.

This is the 24th cabinet and now it's time to start drilling shelf pin holes and final sanding.

Now the shitty part starts.  I've had a cold for the last few days and now it is time to dawn the breathing apparatus and fight with the snot dripping down my face.  The joys of sawdust and snot.

Future building steps:

Drilling for shelve pins.

Final Sanding.

Facing front edge of shelves

Building doors and drawer fronts

Building dovetail drawer boxes

Finishing Stages:

Step   1.  Seal the pores in the Alder with a coat of 1 lb shellac.

          2.  Stain

          3. Three or four coats of clear lacquer, sanding with 220grit between coats.

Drilling doors for hinges

Installing drawer slides 

Building toe kicks.

Demolition. (the fun part)

Sheetrock

Electrical

Plumbing

Installation of Cabinets.  (Wahooooo)

Stay tuned.

Budget?

Kitchen remodels are like cars.  The price can vary from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.  So don't ask the cabinet maker how much will my kitchen remodel cost.  The answer is: "How much do you want to spend"?  Here are some examples of how the cost can vary.

Wood Specie:  Pine-$1.25, Oak-$2.85, Cherry-$4.95 and some of the exotic approach $20.00 a board foot.

Drawer slides:  euro-$3.25, full extension-$6.50, full extension soft-close-$18.00 and full extension under mount soft-close-$44.00  

Kitchen accessories, like recycling centers, pull out pantries, wire and wicker baskets and appliance garages can add thousands to the project.  A tall wire pull out pantry with five shelves cost close to $1000 more than plain shelves. 

Terry's kitchen has finished ends on all cabinets without any plywood cases showing so an example of what the cost can vary is shocking.  If we built his kitchen in pine the cost of lumber (excluding the plywood for the cases) would be   about $500.  The cost could be as high as $8000 if an exotic wood was used.   

In conclusion: You should have a budget when you visit the cabinet designer.  Most cabinet shops can give you a rough estimate my adding up the lineal feet of cabinets and multiplying it by a cost per foot.   The cost per foot will vary with the different specie of wood, finish and door type.  The base price will grow when you start adding upgrades.   If your cabinet maker knows your budget then he can get to the bottom line much faster.  When it comes to getting bids on a kitchen remodel it is much better to start by revealing the budget first and then you can compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.  Pay attention to the details, make lists of needs and have photos of the styles and elements that you like.  If you know what you want and your budget the process will be fun.  If your clueless, buy some aspirins, especially for the designer.

The design is final and this is the detail drawings, nesting sheets and cut lists for Terry's Kitchen Remodel.

This is the stack of lumber waiting to be milled.  400 bf total.

This is about half of the plywood cases waiting for assembly.

First Steps in a Remodel

Well, I didn't post last night because I was beat (an I watched American Idol).  I probably will post in the morning because I'm fresh and it's still dark outside (and raining).  Here are a few tips for the homeowner thinking about remodeling a kitchen.
1.  Use Google to search the internet for kitchen ideas.  Using the right search words will get you to the right spot and cut through the BS.  For and example:  type  "kitchen design photos" into your google search box. Hey do it right now in a new window!!!!   Look at the fourth entry: "

Image results for kitchen remodel photos

 "  or just click on this to get you there.  


You will see that there is 1,280,000 photos of kitchens to look at and if that is too general you can refine your search to "country kitchen remodel photos" or "modern kitchen remodel photos".  I think your getting the picture. Now this is the important part so pay attention:  Remember to bookmark the photos that have design elements you like or better yet, right click over the photo you want to save and click on "save image as", save it to a new folder in your documents that you can title "kitchen remodel ideas".  If you remember to do this then you can email them to your designer so he can get into your brain and put your ideas together and come up with an original design that has many of your favorite elements.  Sounds fun to me and saves tons of design time.  Time is money.  


Here are some photos of my little shop.   Time to go to work.  

I'll talk about hardware, wood and a budget tomorrow.

First Post

My name is Steve and I'm a woodahalic.  I've decided to start this blog to document all of the steps involved in remodeling a kitchen.  About three years ago I promised my good friend Terry that I would remodel his kitchen  and the time is finally here when I have the time and Terry's got the money, so here we go.

The design stage started a few years ago with just a few ideas thrown on the table and a lot of procrastination.  We really didn't get serious until three weeks ago after I finished building a walk-in closet for my daughter.

I have decided that the format of this blog will comprised of lists of things done each day and a few photos to back it up.  I'm not into long narrations explained construction methods in detail, but if you do have questions I will gladly respond.  Since we are already three weeks into the project I will spread out the  design steps over the next week until I catch up and then I will update each night the progress of the day.

I didn't sleep well last night and during my tossing and turning I came up with the idea of documenting the building process.  I'ts just getting light outside and I feel the table saw pulling me towards the door so I will cut this first post a little short.  See ya tonight.