The method I use to build kitchen cabinets is simple, strong and quick. This allows me to put more time into special details than many commercial cabinetmakers consider justifiable. This post, which responds to Eddy, who submitted the following comment on an earlier one, covers a couple of examples.
“I’m very taken with the cabinets in the 4th photo, the same photo that graces the cover of Kitchen Think. I would love to know how they are constructed. Maybe they are the same as the process you outline except for the cabinet on the right.”
1.
Eddy is correct that the main cabinet with doors is built according to the same basic method outlined in Chapter 3. The finished panel at the left end is applied to the basic cabinet built of 3/4″-thick veneer-core plywood; it fits behind the face frame, as shown in the drawing on p.43. At the client’s request, we made the end panel look the same as the one visible on the right side of the photo here, and it’s screwed to the carcase from the inside of the cabinet.
The narrow open cabinet at the right of the picture was designed to hold cookbooks and jars of dry goods. As Eddy suspected, it’s constructed somewhat differently, though the differences are slight. Instead of building a plywood carcase and applying a finished end, the cabinet is built of solid quartersawn oak. To get the look of separate boards, as our client requested, my employee at the time, Daniel O’Grady, who was the principal cabinetmaker on this job, constructed a cabinet side by nailing the two boards to cleats. You can see the location of the cleats from the nails. I wasn’t concerned about wood movement because the boards are only about 6″ wide and quartersawn.
I don’t recall what the other side is made of. It could be a 12″-deep piece of solid quartersawn white oak or a pair of boards. The point is, once the two-board panel was assembled, Daniel treated it just as he would a piece of veneer-core plywood. It and its mate on the opposite side are joined to the solid top and bottom of the cabinet by the same means as I describe in Chapter 3. One other anomaly of this cabinet: Being open, it has a shiplapped oak back to match the general character of the cabinets.
2.
The suspended glazed cabinet here, in the kitchen of Fritz Lieber and Donald Maxwell, is another anomalous example. I originally designed this cabinet to be attached at the wall and have its finished end extend down to the counter. The general contractor, Bert Gilbert, suggested that instead of blocking off part of the counter with the cabinet end we could hang the cabinet from the beam you see here. It was my first experience with all-thread rod, but not my last! Kudos to Bert for this suggestion.
The operational side of the cabinet has two glazed doors. Knowing that the clients were going to put an exhaust hood just a few inches away, I took the hood specs into account in the cabinet’s design; had I not done so, the right-hand door would not have opened. (Photo: Spectrum Creative Group)The back (public side) of the upper cabinet. (Photo: Spectrum Creative Group)
This one is built quite differently – more along the lines of a showcase fitted with a “window” on the public side and two doors at the front. The basic case consists of three frames constructed with mortise-and-tenon joinery. The end at the wall is veneer-core plywood. For more of a furniture look than that of basic kitchen cabinetry, I mitered the stiles of the three frames at the finished end so that they would show quartersawn figure on all sides. I then glued the frames together at the mitered ends and reinforced the joints with brads.
Here’s a plan view drawing. (It’s intended to show the principle, not the actual dimensions.)
Although the drawing says the leaded glass back is fitted into a rabbeted frame, the rabbet is engineered–I fitted matching oak fillets into the casework to create a rabbet in effect, then affixed the panel, in the frame I made for it, into that.
Every kitchen I do has multiple anomalous features. They keep me sane, always providing new challenges.
Editor’s note: “Kitchen Think” is now at the printer and will ship in early August. We are now taking pre-publication orders for the book. If you place your order before the book ships, you will receive a free pdf of the book at checkout.
Sometimes you have to look for clues to period lighting. I suspect this kitchen had a 9′ ceiling, considering the apparent length of the ceiling fixture rod, but you can achieve a similar look with a flush-mounted fixture. A less common light fixture is the lamp on the top of the Hoosier cabinet, which would have been this kitchen’s main preparation space. (Drawing: The Kitchen Plan Book, circa 1920, published by the Hoosier Manufacturing Company, New Castle, In.)
The older you get, the more important it is to have adequate light, whether you’re working at your bench or the kitchen counter. Natural light from windows, glazed doors and skylights is ideal, but in pre-dawn hours and evenings, or on overcast days, you need more.
If your ceiling is 8’ or lower, as ours is, choose light fixtures with headroom, as well as illumination, in mind. (I really really wanted to have 9′ ceilings on the main floor of the house, but that would have increased the cost…and I had to mind my budget.) Fixtures that hang too low can cast a blinding glare, let alone pose a risk to your noggin. Lights recessed in the ceiling maintain maximum headroom and are an excellent choice for general illumination; some varieties allow you to angle the light toward a particular spot such as a stovetop or counter (though in such cases, you’ll want to make sure you won’t cast a shadow on the workspace when you’re working).
If you’re interested in a period look, bear in mind that lighting standards have changed dramatically over the decades. Many of our grandparents cooked in rooms with much less light than we consider necessary (or at least, desirable) today. The kitchen of my 1925 bungalow had a single-bulb sconce in the mulled trim between two small sashes over the sink (similar to the set-up in the drawing at the top of this post – look closely! – and also to the one on the cover of Jane Powell’s Bungalow Kitchens, above) and a central fixture in the ceiling. When I bought the house in 1995, the ceiling fixture was one of those fluorescent coils I now recognize as cool, though I thought it ghastly when I moved in. (Nor was it the original fixture; it had been added during a mid-century update.)
A mid-century style fluorescent ceiling fixture. (Image: Home Depot)
A third fixture, a 1970s pendant wired through a wall and hung on a coppery chain, illuminated a small corner where a breakfast table had presumably once stood. This three-light set-up is typical of many 1920s kitchen I’ve seen in vintage plan books. It may have been fine for people who cooked during the day, but it’s frustrating for those who cook when it’s dark.
Reliable sources for period lighting guidance include vintage catalogs for products such as flooring or cabinets, as well as periodicals such asOld-House Journal, or books such as Bungalow Kitchens and Bungalow Bathrooms.
Architectural salvage shops and yards are a good source of original fixtures; you can often find pieces that are unique. For safety, you should have antique fixtures rewired with modern wire (and where applicable, plugs). An easily accessed, reputable source of antique lighting already rewired to contemporary safety standards is Rejuvenation.
A ceiling fixture I bought at an architectural salvage shop. The fixture itself is metal; someone painted it white. One day I may strip it, but for now I’m just happy to have the hand-painted shade that came with it.
When a fixture will hang over a sink, headroom is less important. Just make sure the bright light won’t be directly in front of your eyes.
Another find from a salvage shop, this pendant with a subtle lavender tint to the glass shade hangs over our sink. (It’s not turned on in this shot.) The bottom of the shade lands at 74″ from the floor. If that had been too low for us, we could have shortened the chain that suspends it.
If the fixture will go over a table, it can hang lower without posing a problem for headroom.
The ceiling here is 95-1/2” high. This fixture, which is quite a long one, hangs down 15”, leaving 80” of vertical clearance–no problem at all, when it hangs over a table, and high enough to avoid posing a problem even if the table weren’t there. A two-lamp sconce illuminates the stove. (The gaping round hole in the ceiling is still-unfinished vent.)Closer to the ceiling: this “Otis” fixture, one of several low-profile models from Schoolhouse Electric.Here, kitty kitty! Another ceiling hugger from Schoolhouse, this time with a gray tabby shade.
OK, so schoolhouse fixtures have become trite by this point. The sources mentioned here have plenty of other styles, including a burgeoning range for mid-century modern and later aesthetics as late-20th-century design regains its moment in the sun.
Wall sconces can illuminate work areas, as well as provide ambient lighting for the room. Many old-house kitchens had sconces over sinks or stoves. Some had a sconce on the wall at each doorway, too. Just make sure that any light fixture near a sink or stove is UL rated for damp locations.
The Alabax sconce from Schoolhouse Lauri Hafvenstein installed a pair of antique sconces for lighting over the sink in her 1917 house in Washington, D.C.. (Photo: Lauri Hafvenstein)
Also consider concealed lighting in the recess below upper cabinets, which provides ideal illumination for work at the counter.
The kitchen of Bruce Chaffin and Jana Moore incorporates under-cabinet lighting, recessed lights in the ceiling, an exhaust hood with integral lighting for the stove and ambient lighting above the upper cabinets, too.
While this is by no means a comprehensive list of lighting options for kitchens with 8′ ceilings, I hope I’ve provided some food for thought. These and many more are covered in Kitchen Think.
The third edition of Jennie Alexander’s “Make a Chair from a Tree” is moving apace. We have a rough design for the book – the same 9″ x 9″ form factor as the original edition, and fonts from the same family, with a few tweaks (including full color) to update it a bit.
And of course the content is updated as well. Over her 40+ years of chairmaking and teaching chairmaking, Jennie’s process became more refined as she adopted new tools and techniques, and made the chair rungs ever lighter. But some things – interlocking joints, to name one – never changed. So the new edition is a mix of old and new text and images, featuring Jennie and some of her most ardent students.
Larry Barrett and Peter Follansbee (two of the aforementioned students, who have been instrumental in getting things in shape) finished their initial edits, and I’ve finished flowing the text into the InDesign templates. We’re currently in what I call the “pink text stage” – that is, we have a rough layout, but there are still some questions to answer, old images to dig up, photographs to take and drawings to draw. So I’m making lists of what still needs to be done.
In other words, it’s in process, but there’s still a bit of work to do before we’re ready for publication. We are, however, on track for early 2021.
When Chris Schwarz asked me to write about what he “got right” in his kitchen (as though there were anything he didn’t get “right” – insert weeping-with-laughter emoji) and what I’d do differently, my first thought was Look, it’s your kitchen. If you designed it and are happy with how it works, I have no place wading in with my two cents.
On the other hand, Chris appreciates the value of such discussion in sharpening how we see our work, whether it be photography (at which I suck, as Chris can attest) or the design of a workbench or chair. We learn by critiquing our own work and listening to the criticisms, as well as affirmation, of others.
So the first thing to say is: This is a gorgeous kitchen, and I can only imagine that Chris and Lucy are thrilled to have it. I wish I had that lofty ceiling and so much space, that glorious sink and that stove (though the six-burner La Cornue would be arguably be wasted on someone who would happily eat salad or homemade burritos with refried beans six nights a week). My husband would give his eye teeth to have a French-door-style fridge with freezer drawer below; we used to have a basic version of this type from Sears, before I made my most-expensive-purchase-ever, a Big Chill retro-style fridge, the “Surprise!” arrival of which brought us closer to breaking up than anything else has in our 14 years together. The dark blue paint is crisp as all get out, especially in contrast to the white interiors. The lacquer-free brass hardware is definitely the way to go (unless you’re emulating the in-your-face glitz of kitchens and baths from the 1980s). I applaud the preservation of the floor, complete with burn marks that record an important moment of the building’s history. And the maple counters and pantry door certainly fulfill Chris’s wish to give the kitchen a furniture maker’s touch.
But I am reasonably good at doing what I’m asked to do (if not in the case of photography), so in the interest of promoting Kochvergnuegen, here are a few points I would bring up if a client asked me for pros and cons regarding some of the details here.
Painted cabinet interiors
Cabinet interiors offer all kinds of creative opportunity. You can make them match the exterior, use contrasting colors or even apply wallpaper to the backs. In cabinets with glazed doors or open shelves you’ll get to enjoy the interior treatment all the time. But don’t ignore interiors that are closed off from regular view – a splash of color when you open the door to make coffee first thing in the morning can be just the zing you need.
Jana Moore painted the cabinet backs this lovely melon color in the kitchen built by her husband, Bruce Chaffin.
I do point out to clients that opaque paint tends to show wear more than natural wood, the grain of which helps distract the eye from scratches and dents. If you’re careful about taking things out and putting them away, you’re not likely to cause significant damage – and even if you do, you can touch it up (or savor the “patina”). Alternatively, you may consider applying shelf paper to shelves or use mesh liners to prevent scratches.
Open center
Although I don’t have the dimensions of the room, it does seem to have a lot of open space in the middle. At least one person asked in the comments on Chris’s original post whether he plans to install an island. My understanding is that he does not. Were he interested in adding a central workspace, in view of his desire to respect the historic architecture of the building, I would suggest a work table rather than an island; work tables were basic fixtures of 19th-century kitchens and have the advantage of being mobile, whereas most islands do not. Islands also tend to be more massive – fine in some kitchens, but in this one, a table with drawers (and perhaps an open shelf below) would preserve the sense of open space while providing a handy staging point between the fridge and stove, in addition to a central visual focus.
Work table in the kitchen at Standen, in Sussex.
Cabinets on counter
My favorite part of the Schwarz kitchen is the wall of floor-to-ceiling built-ins with a deeper central section. The one caveat I always mention to clients is that the counter in such cases becomes more decorative than functional; if you put anything on it, you have to move it to open the doors (or drawers, in this case). One way around this is to use sliding doors, as some historical cabinets do, but sliding doors have their own disadvantages. If you’re building the kitchen yourself and love this look, by all means, go for it. But if a client asked me to build solid maple counters with breadboard ends for this kind of scenario, I’d point out that they’d be paying a lot of money for a feature that’s largely decorative.
Recessed lights in ceiling
Recessed lights are practical and cost-effective, but they’re a mid- to late-20th-century intrusion on a historically inspired space. For what it’s worth, my husband adores them. If I die before he does, he’ll probably retrofit them in our kitchen ceiling, which has just one central schoolhouse fixture. Other lighting comes from a double sconce over the stove, a salvaged pendant over the sink and a couple of under-cabinet fixtures.
In Chris’s kitchen I would have suggested a central ceiling fixture with a few additional pendants, as appropriate, and task lighting under the upper cabinets (which are probably there, even though we can’t see them).
This eclectic kitchen incorporates antique light fixtures.
Applied end panels
The cabinets’ end panels, as well as those of the fridge housing, are made the commercial cabinetmakers’ way; they’re applied, instead of integral. This makes for a busier look, with unnecessary lines. To anyone familiar with historical built-ins, this detail says “hello, I am applied.” As someone whose livelihood depends largely on work for kitchens, I understand that making end panels this way is more efficient — and so, cost-effective — than taking the time to make them look integral to the structure. Most of the end panels in kitchens I do today are applied, but I take pains to make them look as though they’re not.
The end of this fridge housing looks pieced together, in contrast with the structural simplicity of the main cabinet faces, doors and drawers, the pantry door, the wood counters, etc. One way to avoid this is to make a single frame-and-panel side, i.e. with stiles that go all the way from top to bottom. Even if you add intermediate rails to break up the vertical expanse, the rails can be scaled up to avoid the look of each being a door inserted into a face frame.The end panels on this built-in for Nandini Gupta and Rick Harbaugh are also applied, but they are designed to look integral to the upper and lower cabinets and scaled to appear structural.
Inside corners
Instead of incorporating a lazy Susan in the corner to the left of the stove (see the image at the top of this post), I would have recommended sacrificing the inside corner space and providing access to that cavity from the living room. “Kitchen Think” includes a lengthy analysis of the actual footage (square and cubic) that storage devices such as lazy Susans, corner drawers and corner optimizers make available. In most cases, it’s far less than you’d imagine. And the storage area that most of these supposedly space-saving devices end up providing is less than ideal, being oddly shaped or constrained by structural parts.
When kitchen space is seriously limited (and depending on the specific types of items you want to store), a corner storage device can make sense – especially in cases where you can’t access the back of the corner from an adjacent room. This kitchen, though, has tons of storage space (at least, compared to many of my clients’ kitchens), in addition to the ideal scenario in which to make optimal use of the corner by accessing it from the neighboring room. I would have recommended a stack of narrow drawers at the left of the stove (going just to the inside corner) – a perfect spot to keep cooking utensils, a garlic press, hotpads and perhaps a drawer with a built-in knife rack (see Narayan Nayar’s elegant design in Chapter 5).
Why drawers, instead of a door? In most cases, I find drawers more practical and convenient for base cabinet storage. A door with one or two shelves inside certainly costs less to build in a professional shop, but it requires you to get down on the floor to extract things from the bottom shelf (and even from the farther reaches of shelves above that).
Similarly, I would have suggested a set of drawers to the right of the sink – depending on the width available. In a kitchen without a dishwasher, a drawer by the sink is perfect for storing silverware; where there’s a dishwasher, I’d put the silverware drawer next to it. This is also the ideal location to store dishtowels, so you can grab one when your hands are wet. The one crucial caveat to putting drawers on both flanks of an inside corner is you must make the face frame stiles wide enough to allow the drawers to bypass each other when opened – and don’t forget to factor in the protrusion of the drawer pulls! (There’s an entire chapter in the book on the subject of what Chris calls butt savers.)
Bottom line: Chris, I’m pretty sure that Mark would prefer your kitchen to ours – even without the stove.
A few weeks back my mother mentioned that she’d unearthed some old magazines while clearing out a bunch of long-unused stuff. She thought I might be especially interested in a copy of the Ladies’ Home Journal from 1960 that had a feature on kitchens, but she knew I’d also appreciate the March 1950 issue of Esquire for its insights into middle-class American culture 70 years ago (such as the eye-catching cover image of a naked Caucasian woman wearing nothing but a feathered headdress and a string of feathers around her waist, her braids strategically placed to hide her breasts — this, above a trio of feature article titles topped by “Have You A Mistress?”).
I said I’d love to have them.
Flipping through the issue of LHJ the night the package arrived, I found the article on kitchens.
Note the wall-mounted vent over the cooktop.
The feature opens with a kitchen in reclaimed wood coupled with stainless appliances and counters. (Unforgettable indeed.)
Next up: a pair of kitchens in color, classic representatives of the campy mid-century style that furnished so many middle-class homes.
Feeling blue. Future so bright
Nothing surprising here, though I always appreciate historical resources that offer perspective into how people lived – or aspired to live, based on images published in magazines.
But when I reached the last spread I was stunned. Here was a kitchen clearly designed by an artist who’d conceived a three-dimensional sculpture in which to live. A long block of wooden base cabinets with strong horizontal lines left free of hardware contrasted with geometric blocks of black, white and blue. Simple holes made minimalist pulls for sliding doors. Clever storage and prep tricks such as a pull-out work surface and integrated spice storage in the backsplash suggested that whoever planned this kitchen was really thinking, as well as having fun. Color-coordinated curtains in a Danish modern pattern enhanced the lively, artful design. This was a room where I would want to spend time.
“An upholstered bench is comfortable for seating and converts to a bed when maid stays overnight.”
Turning to the text for some background on this outstanding example of modern design, I was stunned to learn it was the work of Tage Frid. Yes, that Tage Frid – the one who was a contributing editor of Fine Woodworking since its inception in 1975 until his death in 2004; who headed the woodworking program at the School for American Craftsmen in Alfred, NY, and later at the Rochester Institute for Technology; and who then taught woodworking and furniture design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) for more than two decades.
Furniture makers have long had a conflicted relationship with the kitchen. Are “cabinets” really furniture, some wonder? Many view the former as an inferior sub-species, at best. The good people at Fine Woodworking themselves have gone back and forth on this matter; in 2005 the magazine published my article about three kitchens titled “Built-Ins that Blend In” but today refer authors to Fine Homebuilding for pitches related to kitchens.
It’s undeniable that many still view the kitchen as a room of lower prestige than those more public spaces where Important Visitors have historically been invited to spend time. The kitchen – and by definition, the furniture within it – has long suffered diminished status thanks to its history as a place of labor done behind closed doors by servants (in the 19th century) or “maids” (in the 20th), the overwhelming majority of them women. Adding insult to injury is the contemporary view of home as real estate, a commodity that warrants regular updates to maintain its value, plus the construction industry’s view of kitchen remodels as potential goldmines, and you’re left with a question: Why would anyone put his or her best work in the kitchen if it’s destined to be torn out a few years later?
Fortunately, some of us are happy to challenge these views.
