A Half Handtools Kitchen

[D_W]

Over a period of a few years (off and on), I've made kitchen cabinets. Probably 90% of the dimensioning has been done by hand, other than the sheet goods that the carcase is made of.

I used a bit set to do the door joints on a router table, and a track saw to cut the corian to fabricate it (I have sawn some of that by hand, though, too, only where it was easier than using the track saw - odd cuts, refitting an error on a small edge where I didn't think I could use a power tool safely (a rip saw through corian is really fast).

This past week, I removed the old kitchen, replaced the plumbing with pex and replaced the sink and faucet, redid the floor and completed fabrication of the countertop (not all of it is in in the picture) - and hung the cabinets, of course.

It's something i'd have completed sooner, but the mrs. has been very resentful through the entire process, hoping I'd pay someone else to do it as her friends' spouses have done. I have heard some of their discussions, and there has been a lot of meddling about my lack of fiscal sacrifice. Very frustrating.

I have probably only had to spend $200 on tools (that i didn't already have) to complete this job, so from my perspective, that's a positive.
Total materials will be about $6-$7K when the job is done.

Doing most of the dimensioning by hand- also rewarding, as well as knowing how everything is installed from the bare room (which means fixing will be easy and no guessing if fixing is needed).

Doors and drawer fronts and face frames are solid cherry. Face frames are hand mortise and tenon and all of the cabinet joints are dado with the face frames reinforced by hidden metal brackets (I anticipate over the years, people slamming doors will put pressure on those).

Finish is target water base lacquer (a misleading term on their part) with crosslinker over shellac. Color interpretation of the photo is bad, this cherry is a little bit more pink.

https://s15.postimg.cc/njkgcx7x7/20180616_121350_1.jpg

 

[Lons]

I have probably only had to spend $200 on tools (that i didn't already have) to complete this job, so from my perspective, that's a positive.

That's a negative in my eyes :wink: I'd view it as a missed opportunity to aquire some lusted after new toys. :lol:

Well done in withstanding the pressure from the mrs and her mates.

 

[custard]

For someone working in their spare time and chiefly with hand tools, that's a stupendous achievement.

Lots of people arrive on this forum with ambitious plans, but I wonder what percentage see them through to completion? Whatever the actual figure, I guess your accomplishment is amongst an extraordinarily rarified category!

=D>

 

[mr edd]

2nd that very good work =D>

 

[D_W]

I hoped to update the picture above with one that has better color, but it looks like it's past the edit time for that post.

https://s15.postimg.cc/t8ibe82jv/20180616_220217_1.jpg

This is a more accurate color depiction, even this is with fluorescent tubes. This cherry has nice color, as has all of the cherry that I've gotten from private sawyers here. The commercial mill wood is exactly the opposite. Pale and whiffy feeling wood (I live right in the middle of the cherry region in the states, so there are a lot of options if you're willing to look around).

Thanks for the nice comments gentlemen. It just seems like a smart thing to do for someone who has woodworking tools. The corian and the minimal plumbing is easy to read up on and learn to do properly. I thought the floating floor was a pain in the arse, and would've rather nailed in T&G flooring, but hopefully, this stuff will wear better in the kitchen.

I have another 6 feet of cabinets to make for the opposite wall out of view, but we have a rolling cabinet doing that duty right now, so it's no rush. Staging all of this crap (materials, storing finished cabinets, etc) has been a pain in the rear, and I left that until last because I was getting tired of finding space.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

David, you're slow lad. Get a move on ... it's been ... years .. since you began!

You know I'm teasing. It is looking terrific and I have been waiting patiently to see some shots of the progress.

Incidentally, when you paste your link to the image, use the "insert image" icon above (simply highlight your paste and click on the icon) ....

I was fortunate not to have young kids in the way and completed my kitchen renovation in about 6 months of weekends. Similarly to you, hands and power, but I also had the advantage of a combination jointer-thicknesser/planer. Thicknessing all you did by hand gets you the prize of 3 months free psychotherapy.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Corneel]

Very nice David! And the wood is of great color and grain indeed. Doesn't cherry get a lot darker after a while?

I can't say anything about your speed, I am terribly slow in completing projects too.

 

[D_W]

Derek - the dimensioning is the psychotherapy! Making 30 planes, and a couple of other projects probably didn't speed the kitchen along. Things we learn once we get kids - my shop is in the garage. Their bedrooms are over the garage. When the mrs would run errands, I could work while the first one took a nap and she wouldn't wake up with mortising going on right below her. The nap days are over, though, and the Mrs. doesn't believe in hobbies because FIL had none. He was on standby 100% of the time (his objective was to spend no money, zero, so being on standby was ideal for him). I'm sure these are all normal dynamics except for the lucky few who are both tolerant but still connected with their spouses. I don't see much of that around here!!

re: the machine planing. There are two things I'd do differently if I did this again. Three, I guess:
1) I'd probably buy a good machine planer, thicknesser, but I have a dewalt lunchbox and it's pretty good (but the times I ran boards through it, I sort of resented it and went back to hand thicknessing. I can hand thickness and parallel about as good as a good portable table saw, jointer and thicknesser - to less than a hundredth in variation without anything other than standard practice. In a kitchen, that's miles more accurate than needed).
2) I'd make the doors flat panel. They're heavy, and they have a dreamy feel with soft close cabinets, but there's no need for all of that weight and nobody else will appreciate the raised panels but me.
3) I'd make a clamp setup to assist with glue ups

I worked in a large cabinet factory summers between college. Everything was automated or semi-automated there. The pair operating clamps could assemble, glue, staple (to reinforce the glue) and get their cabinets on the line (for doors and drawers to be added) in a minute and thirty seconds. Getting these cabinets glued up was a problem - not insurmountable, but a hustle - dados all over the place on them make them fit together OK, but when the glue starts to tack, if something is out of place, it's a ....real hustle!

The corian (different brand in this case, though) is a dream, though. it will take half an hour to resurface in a few years if it marks up, and it'll outlast me. Quartz is the thing around here these days, and I found the tooling to work that and granite, but no interest. The acrylic surfaces are ideal for woodworkers, and all i wore out in fabricating is one tracksaw blade ($30). In the end, I found even my sorby plane (with a soft iron) works the stuff well. It sands like a dream. You can skip grits, it just yields to it.

Anyway, I did notice that you lapped me several times when you popped up and did a kitchen and just wound it out!

 

[D_W]

Very nice David! And the wood is of great color and grain indeed. Doesn't cherry get a lot darker after a while?

I can't say anything about your speed, I am terribly slow in completing projects too.

Yes, it'll darken to a caramel color and the figure will become less pronounced.

 

[D_W]

(I should've said dark caramel. My mother's got some cherry furniture that's about 150 years old. It's uniquely cherry, but dark. I guess the cabinets in the pictures above (some are new, the oldest have spent a few years out of sun light, but have still darkened) are already caramel.

Request for the smarties here. There is a stainless steel hood that fits above that turret fan. It was part of the kitchen before, and is modern looking enough with some retro nameplate that I'm keeping it after cleaning it up last night.

So, that leaves me picking a backsplash. The mrs. wanted tile, then she wanted tin. I'd like to put stainless steel sheet with engine turning (that might be a bit strong visually) behind the oven and tile everywhere else. Don't want tile behind the oven because the Mrs. is a severe cleaner, and the grout will cause trouble when it gets discolored. She says no to a continuous cut piece of sheet metal behind the oven.

Other decent easily cleaned ideas?

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Isn't it funny how when the wife wants her husband to do something, she uses all of her friends to say how obliging their husbands are!! :shock: They think they'll win by ganging up, so well done to you for resisting =D> By the way, great work and a great looking kitchen.

Obi Wan ccasion5:

 

[D_W]

So, my cost when done here is probably going to be about $7K. Plus my time and tool wear, of course.

I'll admit it was a fairly significant effort, and getting things like 12ft long sheets of solid surface is a bit of a challenge when you're receiving them at a residential address.

One of the friends shot me with another barb last night. Her claim was this - she had her kitchen redone by a handyman (it does look nice, they have a lot of rental properties, so their handyman is someone who is more handy than the average blind-hanging guy who works for $20 an hour). What they ended up with is the following:
* plans from an architect for a 600 square foot kitchen area (not a typo), custom plans, not pre-made
* knocked a wall out - old style house here that had a separate kitchen, dining room and breakfast nook - maybe two walls - it's all one area now
* 16 linear feet of quartz countertop plus a quartz 4x10 island
* cabinets under all of that - new - could've been RTA for the handyman to do, but those still cost money
* updated kitchen electrical and kitchen plumbing redone (no sink in island, so the plumbing was probably minimal)
* 600 sf of new ceiling to match, floors stripped (hardwood underneath) and refinished.

Wife says all of the above (materials plus labor) were $10K according to her friend. Those are dollars, not your more valuable pounds. Quartz counters have what looks like grecian ogee - I recognize most large shops do the countertop sizing and finishing by CNC, but it's still not free. Beautiful job, I have to admit.

As far as $10K goes - with my Mrs. believing we went through all of this trouble to save $3k on a kitchen that's about 180sf (walk through type, there are two other doors out of sight) - all I can say to her friend is ...well played =D>

(I'll talk to the Mr. of that house the next time I see him and see what he says. I remember him saying something about a loan of $40K when they got the job done).

Anyway, still curious about backsplashes. Even in their fabulously done kitchen, they have nail-up tin, one of the two easy options for me (i have done a fair amount of tile work, working summers for a tile contractor as a kid - not a whole lot has changed there other than the cost of diamond tooling - it no longer needs to be treated like gold). When I mention cleaning, think someone who would come back after I did a job like this (which made little dust) and reclean the entire house from end to end and then also clean the finished basement (no work was done there, but the cabinets were there). The ability to clean the backsplash to perfection and repeatedly is a big deal.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Dave, I think you did very well for your Dollars. I spent $3500 on the hard maple for the doors and drawers, and it is not a large kitchen.

If you are looking for an easy cleaning backsplash, consider the tinted glass we used ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Corneel]

My kitchen also was in that region about 8 000 - 10000euro. By far the most was the kitchen counter, some kind of quartz material I had installed because it was too difficult to do myself. The range (2500) and the other appliances were also expensive. The wood and plywood for the cabinets was utterly cheap compared to that. I did all the work myself, apart from the counter and the wall plastering.

I had a similar kitchen calculated in one of these big kitchen shops and just the cabinets was allready 8000. Total was something like 20 000.

 

[D_W]

Derek - that glass is just fantastic. A great idea.

 

[D_W]

Curious, Derek, what made you choose presumably american or canadian maple instead of something domestic? Are light colored hardwoods without pores hard to find in Australia?