WIP Kitchen worktops and cabinets - lots of doors
- Thread starter morfa
- Start date
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As the missus has laid down a decree that this must be finished soon, I might have slipped and bought a swanky power tool.
We are pleased to inform you that Order has been despatched.
Despatched Items
SCHEPPL551RAIL48 SCHEPPACH PL55 (CS55) 240V PLUNGE SAW & 1.4m TRACK & SPARE BLADE
Ok it's a cheap Festool track saw knock-off. But it has positive reviews on the interwebs. I've also got a pocket hole thingamabob on the way. I think you can all see where this is going...
We are pleased to inform you that Order has been despatched.
Despatched Items
SCHEPPL551RAIL48 SCHEPPACH PL55 (CS55) 240V PLUNGE SAW & 1.4m TRACK & SPARE BLADE
Ok it's a cheap Festool track saw knock-off. But it has positive reviews on the interwebs. I've also got a pocket hole thingamabob on the way. I think you can all see where this is going...
carlb40
Established Member
OMG :shock:
I can see it now Thread started by Morfa - What planer/ thicknesser, tablesaw do i need? :mrgreen: LOL
Well done on the toys.
I can see it now Thread started by Morfa - What planer/ thicknesser, tablesaw do i need? :mrgreen: LOL
Well done on the toys.
I have jointed the main top to the windowsill piece. It was a right pain to do, even with full access to the underneath. I had to remove it, plane it, put it back together quite a few times. As the bolts were pulling the bottom together more than they were the top, the top ended up with a gap in it. Even tho it was fairly well jointed. So I had to do it better and deepen the bolt holes a lot. It's not perfect still, but it's a lot better than it was.
Then on to the sanding and I have put two coats of oil on the botton and two coats of oil on the top. One or two more coats on the top to go. It looks really nice with the oil on. Very happy so far. Assuming it all fits together ok.
Then on to the sanding and I have put two coats of oil on the botton and two coats of oil on the top. One or two more coats on the top to go. It looks really nice with the oil on. Very happy so far. Assuming it all fits together ok.
Big day today.
Before:
All out:
Cutting the worktop for the sink:
Nearly there:
Cut the cab so it fits underneath as well. Pretty solid days work. Used the plunge saw to start the cuts. Which worked ok, but a couple of parts of the top are slightly thicker than 55mm. Sink fitted fine first time round. But it did take quite a while to do. Spent a lot of time trying to get the whole thing level. Not helped by the floor being very uneven.
I've also made a start on some quick and dirty cabs and a couple of worktops. I'll sort pics out for them later.
Before:
All out:
Cutting the worktop for the sink:
Nearly there:
Cut the cab so it fits underneath as well. Pretty solid days work. Used the plunge saw to start the cuts. Which worked ok, but a couple of parts of the top are slightly thicker than 55mm. Sink fitted fine first time round. But it did take quite a while to do. Spent a lot of time trying to get the whole thing level. Not helped by the floor being very uneven.
I've also made a start on some quick and dirty cabs and a couple of worktops. I'll sort pics out for them later.
Berncarpenter
Established Member
Well done Morfa thats looks great
Cheers Bern
Cheers Bern
Bern - I couldn't have done it without your help, both on here and the loan of tools. And obviously building the cabinet. Carl also deserves a lot of thanks.
It was bl***y hard work I have to say all in. Longish day on Thursday. The plumber said he'd be able to come on Thursday, but then got stuck at a job. So said he'd come on Friday. Then worked 0700 to 2100 on Friday. The plumber got stuck and didn't arrive on Friday either. So Saturday morning hove round and he arrived. Good thing really as I wasn't ready on Friday.
I knocked up another cabinet last night, so that's three done. I've made a good start on the worktop, just a bit more planing on that to go. I'll put up some pics of that lot later on.
Sadly none of it is very level and the windowsill joint isn't very good either. This also means that the sink doesn't sit fully flush with the worktop. It's good at the front and on the right side. But as the worktop dips away at the left side, the back left corner of the kitchen is a good 6mm above the worktop surface.
So I could either:
1 - Make a groove for the left of the sink to sit in, so that the gap on the other side is smaller (I tried some shims to raise the other side, to even it out, but that doesn't really make much difference).
2 - Seal it up as the gap is at the back and once it's all done, I won't be able to easily see it. No one will notice it ever.
3 - Remove it all, flatten the worktop (properly this time!) and put it all back in.
All are options, the sink wouldn't be hard to remove as the plumbers have put valves in so I can shut it all off if I need to. It's not yet sealed so that's definitely an option. I'll probably go with option 2.
It was bl***y hard work I have to say all in. Longish day on Thursday. The plumber said he'd be able to come on Thursday, but then got stuck at a job. So said he'd come on Friday. Then worked 0700 to 2100 on Friday. The plumber got stuck and didn't arrive on Friday either. So Saturday morning hove round and he arrived. Good thing really as I wasn't ready on Friday.
I knocked up another cabinet last night, so that's three done. I've made a good start on the worktop, just a bit more planing on that to go. I'll put up some pics of that lot later on.
Sadly none of it is very level and the windowsill joint isn't very good either. This also means that the sink doesn't sit fully flush with the worktop. It's good at the front and on the right side. But as the worktop dips away at the left side, the back left corner of the kitchen is a good 6mm above the worktop surface.
So I could either:
1 - Make a groove for the left of the sink to sit in, so that the gap on the other side is smaller (I tried some shims to raise the other side, to even it out, but that doesn't really make much difference).
2 - Seal it up as the gap is at the back and once it's all done, I won't be able to easily see it. No one will notice it ever.
3 - Remove it all, flatten the worktop (properly this time!) and put it all back in.
All are options, the sink wouldn't be hard to remove as the plumbers have put valves in so I can shut it all off if I need to. It's not yet sealed so that's definitely an option. I'll probably go with option 2.
billybuntus
Established Member
Nice progress (hammer)
May I suggest jointing your worktop to the cill so it's flush and watertight.
I have a similar setup and when I replace the kitchen I'll be fitting one piece worktop as water is penetrating the joint and its a problem.
Just my 2p.
May I suggest jointing your worktop to the cill so it's flush and watertight.
I have a similar setup and when I replace the kitchen I'll be fitting one piece worktop as water is penetrating the joint and its a problem.
Just my 2p.
All sealed up now. Went for option one in the end. I can always remove it all and fix it up anyway. Probably won't tho, just adding it to a long list of wonky DIY things in the house.o
Here's a pic of the cabinets that I knocked up the other day. 18mm MDF with a nice Oak veneer. Held together with pocket holes. I've got a couple of bits of oak and I'm planing them up, to make a nice worktop. Hopefully this one will go better than the last one. Fingers crossed.
Billy - It's jointed up ok, it's more that there's a slight different with the height of the worktops.
Here's a pic of the cabinets that I knocked up the other day. 18mm MDF with a nice Oak veneer. Held together with pocket holes. I've got a couple of bits of oak and I'm planing them up, to make a nice worktop. Hopefully this one will go better than the last one. Fingers crossed.
Billy - It's jointed up ok, it's more that there's a slight different with the height of the worktops.
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Berncarpenter
Established Member
This has been quite an ambitious job for you to attempt .Not easy to accomplish but fair ply you have pulled it off well done =D> =D> =D>
Cheers Bern
Cheers Bern
So I'm starting on the doors now. With that in mind I need to be able to do mortise and tenon joints properly. So I've taken the one orrible piece of wood and used it to do some practice on.
Here's the off cuts:
This one came out ok:
A couple more hours of this and i reckon I'll be able to start making a proper attempt at a face frame and then at a door. Also I really need to get a proper tenon saw. You can do the cheeks with a dovetail saw, but it's not that great.
Here's the off cuts:
This one came out ok:
A couple more hours of this and i reckon I'll be able to start making a proper attempt at a face frame and then at a door. Also I really need to get a proper tenon saw. You can do the cheeks with a dovetail saw, but it's not that great.
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I think in the end i did about 8 test joints. Towards the end they came out quite well. So I've moved on to the face frames proper. In the section under the sink, I've done one and a half of the frames. I've just got to do the top of the second frame. Then figure out how I'll be arranging the door to go in front of the dishwasher. But I suspect I'll make the doors next.
So here are a few quick photos of what I did the other day. Not everything, but close enough. One of the finished tenons. There is a selection of the tools that I used in the back ground to make it with. The paring chisel is made by Wilco Flier, who posts on here from time to time. It's lovely. The saw is a sash saw which I got from the bay of e, its a late 1800s American make, with a new blade. Cuts wonderfully. I've also gone back to Japanese saws for the general tenon ripping. That's a dozuki from workshopheaven. Comes with a spare blade at the moment, so that's an excellent offer well worth taking up. Sorry for the flash stuffing it all up.
And here is the first face frame completed and in place. It's actually pretty square. Which is a bit of a shocker really.
I hope to finish the second half this evening, it's just doing two tenons. Then I'll start on marking up the door. Fingers crossed it'll be done over the next few weeks.
And here is the first face frame completed and in place. It's actually pretty square. Which is a bit of a shocker really.
I hope to finish the second half this evening, it's just doing two tenons. Then I'll start on marking up the door. Fingers crossed it'll be done over the next few weeks.
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Woo and yay, I've managed to make a door. Wasn't too bad, took an afternoon, not counting the fact that the wood was already cut and planed.
The plough plane was excellent. Never used one before but it worked wonderfully. The panel wasn't quite to the right size, but it's close enough. I need to trim it a bit more however. Otherwise it went fairly smoothly. Few tweaks before it all went in, but it fits well and I'm now wondering if I actually want to bother with painting it all. As it looks nice as it is really.
The plough plane was excellent. Never used one before but it worked wonderfully. The panel wasn't quite to the right size, but it's close enough. I need to trim it a bit more however. Otherwise it went fairly smoothly. Few tweaks before it all went in, but it fits well and I'm now wondering if I actually want to bother with painting it all. As it looks nice as it is really.
Attachments
Berncarpenter
Established Member
Well done Morfa good to see your making some progress, now you got the first one done and dusted you should fly the rest =D> =D> =D>
Cheers Bern
Cheers Bern
Four doors done. Both face frames done. I've done two extra cabinets to go next to the cooker today. So it's getting closer to being done. Here's a few pics.
The cooker with worktops on top.
The track saw in action.
Doors, doors and more doors.
The cooker with worktops on top.
The track saw in action.
Doors, doors and more doors.
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I could almost be accused of having nearly finished this job. Finally. Here's a few photos:
The cabinet under the sink:
The other line of 3 cabinets, still only made one of the drawers, as I ran out of wood.
Cabinets next to the cooker with worktops on them:
The cabinet under the sink:
The other line of 3 cabinets, still only made one of the drawers, as I ran out of wood.
Cabinets next to the cooker with worktops on them:
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While the kitchen isn't quite finished yet, it's moving along nicely and I'm certainly well over half way. In fact I'd probably go as far to say that the end is in sight. So I thought I'd talk a bit about how long things have taken me, what's been the hardest thing and what's not been so bad. The initial plan was as follows:
1 - Build a kitchen worktop, unit and install the sink & get a dishwasher plumbed in. - all done (well I'm building a small end unit, but the rest of it is done)
2 - Worktop and cabinet next to the cooker, including tiling and fitting a cooker hood in the chimney - the woodworking in the alcove is done.
3 - Small cabinet (not a modern style cabinet) - shelved for now...
As always the plan didn't survive contact with the enemy. #3 was dropped totally in favour of 'speeding things up' by making a few cabinets out of sheet goods, but with wooden fronts and a wooden worktop. I actually think that if I'd stuck with #3 I'd be totally finished by now. But there we go. Building the cabinets, once I'd bought a decent tracksaw was really quite quick. I'd say I can do a cabinet, out of birch ply in about 2 hours now, nothing fancy, just pocket hole joinery, but they're really sturdy and I'm happy with the results. I've built 5 cabinets now and I did three in one day and two in another day. Those were fairly lazy days as well.
The worktops have not been quick at all. I think that each worktop has probably taken me about a month in elapsed time and about 7 days of work. Easily. I'm quite happy with the worktop by the sink. It's not perfectly flat, but it's really nice and thick and looks great. The oak worktop was a bit of a bust, as I bought two bits of wood which were quite different thicknesses. Which wasn't ideal. But it's turned out ok, it looks good and cost me £80 which is way cheaper than anything I could have bought. The Osmo top oil has been great and the small tin I bought has lasted for ages. While it has been lots of hard work planing the worktops by hand, I've learnt a lot about planing in the hours I've spent working on them. So it's been time well spent and they have come out ok, especially as I was a beginner when I started. Still am really.
The doors have ended up being a bit of a compromise. I had intended to make them fully out of poplar, but in the end I bought some birch ply to form the middle piece. I'm glad I did as it took long enough to build the doors as it was. Once the wood was planed and cut to size, it was probably a whole day for the first door. Then about 3 hours per door after that. I probably spent a weekend and a week of evenings getting all the wood the right dimensions for the doors. The face frames took a similar amount of time really. A week or so of dimensioning and then making. So the bit I thought would be the hardest, i.e. the jointing and putting together was a small part of the larger job which was planing the wood to the right size, cutting it all to length and the like.
Painting it all has taken a real age as well. 3/4 under/primer coats then 3 or so top coats of gloss. I've not been able to paint everything at once either, leaving me with what's felt like endless weeks of painting. I really hate painting now. No more painted stuff for me, that's for sure.
Fitting the worktop and the sink took me about 3 days or so. Might have been 4. They were long, long days. It's hard work this fitting malarky, especially if you're a soft office worker. So far I've probably spent about 4 elapsed months of working hard on the kitchen. So that's Feb/Mar of 2014 and Dec/Jan of 2015. That's working pretty much all weekend long most weekends and pretty much every evening.
Still to go:
- Tile the alcove
- Build a thin cabinet to go under the end of the sink
- Build a set of shelves to go in the sink alcove
- Install ducting to extract the cooker steam etc outside.
So would I recommend you build your own kitchen? As I know it's something many of us think of doing. Well at the moment, heck no! But I've been slogging at it for months, living in mess and generally taking ages to do a job that doesn't live up to the unrealistically high standards that I've set myself. But generally it's actually been good fun. I've learnt a lot, got a nice looking kitchen which is probably cheaper (just from a materials cost point of view) than buying a cheap Ikea kitchen. If you have a lot of time, or a big workshop where you can store the kitchen before the fit, then I'd say it's probably not that bad.
1 - Build a kitchen worktop, unit and install the sink & get a dishwasher plumbed in. - all done (well I'm building a small end unit, but the rest of it is done)
2 - Worktop and cabinet next to the cooker, including tiling and fitting a cooker hood in the chimney - the woodworking in the alcove is done.
3 - Small cabinet (not a modern style cabinet) - shelved for now...
As always the plan didn't survive contact with the enemy. #3 was dropped totally in favour of 'speeding things up' by making a few cabinets out of sheet goods, but with wooden fronts and a wooden worktop. I actually think that if I'd stuck with #3 I'd be totally finished by now. But there we go. Building the cabinets, once I'd bought a decent tracksaw was really quite quick. I'd say I can do a cabinet, out of birch ply in about 2 hours now, nothing fancy, just pocket hole joinery, but they're really sturdy and I'm happy with the results. I've built 5 cabinets now and I did three in one day and two in another day. Those were fairly lazy days as well.
The worktops have not been quick at all. I think that each worktop has probably taken me about a month in elapsed time and about 7 days of work. Easily. I'm quite happy with the worktop by the sink. It's not perfectly flat, but it's really nice and thick and looks great. The oak worktop was a bit of a bust, as I bought two bits of wood which were quite different thicknesses. Which wasn't ideal. But it's turned out ok, it looks good and cost me £80 which is way cheaper than anything I could have bought. The Osmo top oil has been great and the small tin I bought has lasted for ages. While it has been lots of hard work planing the worktops by hand, I've learnt a lot about planing in the hours I've spent working on them. So it's been time well spent and they have come out ok, especially as I was a beginner when I started. Still am really.
The doors have ended up being a bit of a compromise. I had intended to make them fully out of poplar, but in the end I bought some birch ply to form the middle piece. I'm glad I did as it took long enough to build the doors as it was. Once the wood was planed and cut to size, it was probably a whole day for the first door. Then about 3 hours per door after that. I probably spent a weekend and a week of evenings getting all the wood the right dimensions for the doors. The face frames took a similar amount of time really. A week or so of dimensioning and then making. So the bit I thought would be the hardest, i.e. the jointing and putting together was a small part of the larger job which was planing the wood to the right size, cutting it all to length and the like.
Painting it all has taken a real age as well. 3/4 under/primer coats then 3 or so top coats of gloss. I've not been able to paint everything at once either, leaving me with what's felt like endless weeks of painting. I really hate painting now. No more painted stuff for me, that's for sure.
Fitting the worktop and the sink took me about 3 days or so. Might have been 4. They were long, long days. It's hard work this fitting malarky, especially if you're a soft office worker. So far I've probably spent about 4 elapsed months of working hard on the kitchen. So that's Feb/Mar of 2014 and Dec/Jan of 2015. That's working pretty much all weekend long most weekends and pretty much every evening.
Still to go:
- Tile the alcove
- Build a thin cabinet to go under the end of the sink
- Build a set of shelves to go in the sink alcove
- Install ducting to extract the cooker steam etc outside.
So would I recommend you build your own kitchen? As I know it's something many of us think of doing. Well at the moment, heck no! But I've been slogging at it for months, living in mess and generally taking ages to do a job that doesn't live up to the unrealistically high standards that I've set myself. But generally it's actually been good fun. I've learnt a lot, got a nice looking kitchen which is probably cheaper (just from a materials cost point of view) than buying a cheap Ikea kitchen. If you have a lot of time, or a big workshop where you can store the kitchen before the fit, then I'd say it's probably not that bad.
siggy_7
Full time tool collector, part time woodworker
Looking really good, I find it very uplifting when the end is in sight! I'm just about to embark on a kitchen from scratch myself. Your review of the experience is very honest and adds some realism to expectations of what the experience will be like for me, so thank you. Ultimately whilst these big jobs do sometimes take the fun out of DIY a bit for me at the time of doing them, being able to look back at the work once it's finished and providing years of satisfying service is worth it for me. I hope you find the same.
