WIP Kitchen worktops and cabinets - lots of doors

[morfa]

One of the major reasons for me starting to do woodworking was to work on the various parts of the house that needed woodworking doing. The biggest part was the kitchen. So after a while, I've got the tools, some vague skills and now the wood needed. There's several main parts to this job.

1 - Build a kitchen worktop, unit and install the sink & get a dishwasher plumbed in.

2 - Worktop and cabinet next to the cooker, including tiling and fitting a cooker hood in the chimney

3 - Small cabinet (not a modern style cabinet)

other stuff inc table and welsh dresser (which aren't in scope for this WIP).

I've got a bunch of pics from todays work, which I'll post up tomorrow along with whatever I get to do tomorrow.

 

[mseries]

One of the major reasons for me starting to do woodworking was to work on the various parts of the house that needed woodworking doing. The biggest part was the kitchen. So after a while, I've got the tools, some vague skills and now the wood needed. There's several main parts to this job.

1 - Build a kitchen worktop, unit and install the sink & get a dishwasher plumbed in.

2 - Worktop and cabinet next to the cooker, including tiling and fitting a cooker hood in the chimney

3 - Small cabinet (not a modern style cabinet)

other stuff inc table and welsh dresser (which aren't in scope for this WIP).

I've got a bunch of pics from todays work, which I'll post up tomorrow along with whatever I get to do tomorrow.

Please do, I will be interested in your welsh dresser WIP too

 

[Grahamshed]

Looking forward to seeing them. That was why I got into woodwork when I retired. So much to do still.

 

[Baldhead]

We all love WIP stuff.

The first (and last) kitchen I fitted was in 2006 in our daughters flat, a narrow galley style, so narrow that I had to buy flat pack units and cut the backs off. I never occurred to me at the time that by making the units narrower I would have to make the worktop narrower, this inturn meant I couldn't fit a standard size sink.

I bought the units and worktops from Screwfix, I also joined their community (another name for forum) where I was given a lot of excellent advice from kitchen fitters and plumbers.

Re the sink, one person suggested using a sink that is designed for caravans, now that I thought was thinking 'outside of the box', I would never have thought of that , so may be worth checking out their community.

Baldhead

 

[carlb40]

Looking on with eagerness.

 

[paulking]

Cant wait to your pics!!

 

[morfa]

One thing that I didn't mention in the previous post, I'm the cook in the house. The wife doesn't come in the kitchen. So basically I'm out to please myself with this.

So firstly here's a few pictures of the mess that I'm trying to sort out.

Below is the kitchen fireplace. I've got to, put a extractor fan up in the chimney (goes straight outside), tile the back, put in two Iroko worktops either side of the cooker and sort out some kind of (small) cabinet/shelves for the sides. Probably for pan / dryingup cloth storage.

Also I need to tidy up the brick arch. Not sure what to do with that, suggestions?

Now the main sink area. This is a bit less work. I've got to build the sycamore worktop. Bern has made me an excellent sink cabinet. Then I've got to fit the worktop and get the plumber in to plumb everything up. I don't do plumbing.

Now for the wood. This is the sycamore for the worktop laid out roughly how it needs to go. The main run is 205cms by 72cms. The wood is about 3" thick (ish). But I've got the other bit there for the window area. The orange tape measure is the length it needs to be. The paper in the middle is the location of the sink. The paper at the end furthest from teh camera is what will be hidden by a shelf. The other tape is the max width needed (100cm) for the window sill. It's staggered, cause that bit of wood is just for the window sill. The random bit of wood is the width of the window sill.

Here's the rest of the wood. Iroko for the fireplace worktops. Sweet chestnut for a cabinet.

That's it for now. I'll post the weekends work up soon.

 

[carlb40]

Can't quite make out the arch. Has it been recently pointed/ built? A bit of diluted brick acid should clean it up nicely. I think i have some but not sure i would risk posting it.

If i was closer i would pop over and plumb the sink in for you. It isn't that hard.

 

[morfa]

Carl - it's as old as the house, so 1904. Pointing wise it's ok. But the bricks are old and not in the absolute best condition. Would the acid weaken them?

My plumber is going to do it along with fitting the new waste (there will be a dishwasher going under there as well) and the boiler service. Also he's got to remove a sink in the utility room. He's also said he'll help with getting the worktop on as well. He's a nice guy and we get on well. So it's going to be handy to have him there.

 

[carlb40]

The acid should be fine, it is often used to clean the salts and compo off bricks from messy brickies LOL.

You could try warm water and a brass scrubbing brush to clean the brick up a bit. Or just leave it as patina.

 

[Berncarpenter]

Glad you are pleased with the cabinet and a big thank you for taking a look at my laptop .I have plenty of those old black and red floor tiles if you would like some for in front of the cooker ? Good luck with the build and if you need a hand dont hesitate to call.
Cheers Bern.

 

[morfa]

Big update time now. This is all the work from last weekend and the work from this weekend. Which isn't all that much really, but it's steady progress. Firstly a shot of the cabinet that Bern made. It's made out of really nice plywood.

New toy from America. Specifically from http://www.secondchancesawworks.com, it's a Disston Jackson Carcass saw from around 1890. Filed crosscut and it's very good.

I've never really clicked with the no 5 1/2. However I gave it another go and it's working really well on the iroko. I was just doing the first smoothing with the no 4. But switched to the 5 and it's way better. The doorpost makes a good plane stop. I've not sorted out all the dog holes and the proper stop.

All cut up and ready to be jointed / glued up.

Gluing up. Nice and neat as always.

I'll save you all the other pictures, till both the worktops are finished. But they're ok, however I could have done the jointing better. So I spent today making sure the other work top is perfect. I'm not very good at the jointing so I ended up taking about 5mm off both pieces of wood. Took an hour. For one joint. So tomorrow evening I'll hopefully get another joint done.

The underside of the arch. This is why I need to tidy up the arch. The old mortar keeps on falling off the underside of the arch and that's what the main problem is. I was planning to re-mortar it and paint it.

 

[carlb40]

Ooooh i see Bern has used birch ply for your cabinet. =D>

Liking that saw well done.

For jointing, if you have a router and a straight edge? That could be an option for you.

I would scrape off the loose mortar, carefully apply neat pva to the parts you want to repoint. Let it dry then repoint.

 

[morfa]

I'm happy to spend the time learning how to do it with a hand plane. I don't do power tools really (expensive, scary, noisy and take up loads of space). Much prefer hand tools. Takes longer and is harder to do, but that's fine with me.

 

[carlb40]

That's cool.

I'm trying to use more hand tools too. :shock:

 

[morfa]

Been working on this during the week. All pretty dull to be honest. However the iroko worktops are nearly finished. Which is good as the dust is horrible and the tearout is horrific. I'm not very happy with them, but the wife (bless her) said that they're really good. So here they are:

I decided that it would be a good idea to make a template out of MDF. Which I really think is a good idea. So here's the template on top of the sink.

Here's the template on top of part of the syamore:

The other part of the sycamore roughly cut ready to be shaped so it can fit in the window space.

I'm beginning to think that this is a lot harder that I'd originally thought. Which isn't surprising as I'm very good at biting off more than I can chew. I think with the benefit of hindsight, I should have bought more thinner boards, i.e. several 20-30 cm boards and not one 50cm and one 20 cm board. It would be much easier with boards that aren't as wide.

 

[carlb40]

Hmmmm i was expecting a slightly thicker worktop than that :mrgreen:

 

[morfa]

I measured them and they're a little over 2 inches thick. So not as thick as I'd said previously I think.

 

[carlb40]

I measured them and they're a little over 2 inches thick. So not as thick as I'd said previously I think.

It's ok, when i commented only the mdf template on the sink base had loaded .

 

[morfa]

I've got a few large knots in the wood, that will need to be filled somehow. Any suggestions as to the best way for doing that?

I've found a wax filler by a company called Liberon, which looks like it might be good. I see a few folk suggesting clear epoxy/resin, is that basically the two part glue that you can get?