Up, up, and away!

Quick picture update from our progress last night: more upper cabinets!!

An addition to the large cabinet seen in the post yesterday. It should look good with a pair of doors, don't you think? All the cabinets will get another coat of paint before I'll be totally happy with them, but for now I think they look just fine! :)

All of them, actually. All that’s left now is the hood over the range, but that’s a project for another day. 

These are the upper cabinets on either side of the range hood that doesn't yet exist. The cabinet on the left has shelves that are set back a few inches to accomodate a spice rack that hangs on the inside of the door.  

As you can see, I really don’t have that many cabinets, but we had to find the wiring we left wound up in the wall for the under cabinet lighting. So between that and the fact the neither my dad nor myself had hung cabinets, I think we made pretty good progress in an hour and a half J

I didn't get a picture of the cabinet hanging in the other corner over the hypothetical dishwasher, but once you've seen one, you've seen them all. The backsplash area behind the stove will be covered with a piece of stainless steel, and I'll wrap the stove-sides of the upper cabinets with it, too. Should be pretty snazzy!

This weekend is a busy one – I’ll be volunteering Saturday morning for a large, community-wide service project, and there’s a graduation party for a family friend that night..so my guess is there won’t be a lot of base cabinet setting happening that day. Tonight and Sunday might be productive, though…I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see!

Kitchen Cabinets

We’ve been working on a pretty big project for the last few weeks. Actually, we’ve been actively working on it for the last week and a half or so.  The rest has been mostly mental work..strategy and such. We made big progress this weekend, though!

The big project I’m referring to is cabinetry. Kitchen cabinetry. We’ve been pretty methodical about it, and we’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel! In all honesty, I don’t think it’s taken a terribly long time given the number of steps it takes to convert a sheet of material into the container I trust to hold my food, but Dad has been worrying about this for a while. This project is kind of his baby and he doesn’t want to mess it up.

Understandably so.

In the past, he worked with a custom cabinet maker on the side, so he’s got an idea of how it should work. That said, when he worked for this guy, Dad didn’t draw up the plans or install the cabinets once they were finished. So..he’s worried.

I’m not. We’ll be fine. We’re taking our time for a reason. The old ‘measure twice, cut once’ thing? We’re doing that, and usually having a conversation about each cut before, during, and after making it. If the cabinets are messed up, it’s our fault..not his. I suppose another good thing about building your own cabinets is that if they don’t fit you can make one that does. But what a pain that would be..

Anyway, here are a few pictures of our organized chaos in the garage. The cabinets in these pictures are the base units – since these shots were taken, those have all been primed and painted with a sprayer and stored in the enclosed porch until we’re ready for them. In the meantime, we’ve cut, primed and painted the pieces for the upper cabinets and should start assembling those in the next few days, or as his work schedule allows.

As I said, organized chaos.

Base cabinet boxes assembled, working on their face frames.

Cabinet with face frame. This will have a swing door..I think this size cabinet goes on either side of the oven.

Sanding the face frame for the cabinets with drawers. Very cool!

We’ll hang the uppers first, and then set the base cabinets – they’re easier to install that way. Once everything is set, we can measure for cabinet doors and counter tops, which I look forward to learning how to make out of concrete J

Wish us luck!