Kitchen Remodel, part 2

Ok, sorry this has taken too long. This is a continuation of the previous kitchen remodel post, Kitchen Remodel, part 1. When I left off, we’d just finished the floor, so today I’ll show off some cabinet construction. Below are pictures of Gavin and I assembling the cabinets. I decided to build a frameless style cabinet, because they’re a little easier to construct and they give you more space (the front face-frame on a cabinet actually makes you lose about 15-20% of your space, especially with drawers).

 

 

After we’d built the cabinets, we got to stain them. After that, we installed a bunch of really nifty feet onto the bottom that make it a million times easier to level the cabinets (the cabinets have to be level, especially with granite countertops, or they will crack). These feet just have a little screw in the front of the cabinet that adjusts the height of the foot up and down. Once they were stained, we got to put the cabinets in place:

 

 

And once they were in place, I got to play around with the level to make sure they were all aligned properly:

  

 

 

 

And then once the cabinets were in place and level, we had a bunch of burly guys come and carry in our slab of granite and put it into place. We then got to put in a stove and a sink!

Unfortunately, at this point we now had functional cabinets and drawers, and the urgency of the project then disappeared. It took me over a month past this point before I finally got the upper cabinets put up:

 

 

And once again, at this point there were several months of delay before we got the cabinet fronts installed. In part, this was because my toolkit needed some additions in order for me to tackle this project. Notably, in order to do the cabinet fronts, I built a bandsaw and a router table. That being done, we started putting doors together. I got to have fun creating a neat design for them in Sketchup and then cutting them out on the bandsaw. It was a frame and panel design, so there were lots of curved surfaces that had to line up fairly precisely, so I ended up cutting a template out of plywood in order to trace onto the pieces. I then did a rough cut with the bandsaw and got my final surface using a tracing bit on my router. Then I cut the groves for the rails and stiles and glued them all together, and Kristin and I stained and lacquered them all (she’s generally driving the camera, which is why she doesn’t show up in as many of the photos).

 

 

 

 

Then after etching some glass, glueing and staining a bunch of door/drawer fronts, and screwing a whole bunch of hardware on, we finally had (mostly) a finished kitchen! And Kristin will tell you, that summing that up in one sentence really doesn’t do that step justice, since it took several months. But hey, let’s be honest you all just want to see pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

That last photo, looking through the window at the dining room, is right where the ugly white fridge used to be. So at this point, feel free to go back to the beginning of the first post to see what it looked like before we started. It’s been a lot of fun, and a lot of patience, and there are still a few small things that need doing, but we’re enjoying our sense of accomplishment. I hope you all like it, and let us know what you think in the comments section!