Category: Kitchen Think

I’ve been at home this week (and possibly will be next) staring on and off at my not-yet-finished kitchen – on which I cannot currently work – every time I go to refresh my ice pack and drink more fluids. (I’m recovering from minor but uncomfortable surgery, and am under doctor’s orders to do no physically taxing work and to lift no more than 10 pounds for at least two weeks.)

This gives me plenty of time to second-guess my decisions. Maybe I should have built a lazy Susan cabinet in the corner…. Perhaps a smaller refrigerator tucked into the pantry would have been a better use of space… Should I have done inset toe kicks after all… Why did I even start this project ….

But start it I did, the day after Thanksgiving last year. And I’ve been thinking about it since the day I closed on the house in 2016. The first thing I built was the pantry storage, so that I’d have a place to store stuff – and it turns out that the pantry holds about 70 percent of my dishes, cookware, food stocks, etc. Not in any terribly organized or convenient setup, mind you – but at least I don’t have everything piled on my dining room table.

I moved my refrigerator into the dining room for a few months while I tore everything out and had the floors sanded and refinished. Going down to the basement to do dishes sucked enough that I got the sink base done quickly and hooked up the disposal and dishwasher with as little delay as possible.

And, my stove is now in place and hooked up. It taught me an expensive lesson: Do not replace a gas stove with a dual-fuel stove (or an all electric range, I suppose) without first making sure you have enough space on your electric panel to run that new stove. (I had to have a new panel put in…there went the budget!)

I built the cabinets just like Nancy Hiller teaches in “Kitchen Think” – except I use loose tenons where she used biscuits, because we have a Domino but no biscuit joiner. I did build one cabinet without loose tenons – screws only – and that was a mistake. The tenons (or biscuits) make it a heck of a lot easier to keep things in alignment as you drive screws. Always listen to Nancy.

I sure wish she were around to help me – or to at least weigh in on my choices. Or to simply share dinner with. (But I think she’d be proud I decided against a corner cabinet.)

Here’s how Nancy usually built kitchen cabinets (and how I do, too).

– Fitz

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The method I use most often for built-in cabinetry combines simplicity and strength for the basic casework with materials and techniques for doors, drawers and finished panels that owe more to the world of furniture than that of contemporary commercial cabinetmaking. The technique that follows is a hybrid, drawing on what I learned at the different shops where I’ve worked. I have chosen materials and methods that make sense for my business, given my clientele and the styles in which I specialize.

I have worked on kitchen remodels managed by general contractors, but more often I’m working directly for clients. This is at least partly because installing the type of cabinets I most often build for kitchens is more labor-intensive and finicky than a lot of contractors want to bother with. They want to get their job done and return the kitchen to their clients as quickly as they can while doing high-quality work.

I get it. Before my husband and I were romantically involved, we were acquainted as tradespersons in the town we’d both made our home. The first job on which we collaborated was a wall of built-in bookcases. The clients had contracted with me to design and build them; Mark and his crew were going to do the installation. When we discussed the job initially, I asked about scribe rails for the sides where the bookcase face frames would meet the walls. “Life’s too short,” Mark commented. I was happy to be let off the hook and have him install the casework with applied trim, as he saw fit.

As time went on and we worked together on several kitchens, his attitude shifted. He still prefers not to scribe cabinets to their surroundings – it’s fiddly work that involves a fair amount of heavy lifting. As you get older, it hurts. But despite the aches, Mark has become expert at installing this type of cabinetry. A couple of years ago he even said he’d come to appreciate why I design and build kitchen cabinetry the way I do – it’s far more truly handmade than the majority of custom cabinetry. It allows the cabinetmaker (in this case, Mark’s wife) to use materials and techniques that are no longer common in this line of work, which translates to opportunities for the kind of satisfaction John Ruskin argued was every worker’s birthright.6 And in my experience, it’s clear that many clients appreciate the extra attention to detail, along with the awareness of history and craft that underlies it.

This is not to suggest that building and installing cabinets according to the following methods will be for everyone. It obviously isn’t. But considering how much flak I’ve had for my approach from fellow professionals over the years, it’s worth pointing out that a growing number of craftspersons and clients value this way of working.

The cabinet in the following example was designed for the kitchen of a 1912 house. I planned to scribe it to the floor and to the wall at its left; that’s why the face frame protrudes beyond the cabinet’s left side.

Unless you’re running a production facility where you build things in multiples to standard sizes, you should take the building work in stages instead of cutting all your parts at the start, based on a cutting list taken off drawings. That way you’ll have a chance to adjust the different parts to fit what you’ve made so far, instead of finding that your face frame is 1/16″ too narrow or you cut the recess for your kick 1/4″ too high.

Some people start with face frames, then build their carcases to fit. I work the other way around: Once the basic cases have been assembled, I move on to face frames. Then come doors and drawers.

Get Going

Now you have your scale elevations at hand and have made a cutting list based on them. My typical material for kitchen casework is 3/4″ maple-faced veneer-core plywood, prefinished on one side. The prefinished side goes to the cabinet interior; it saves a lot of time, which helps make my work affordable. That said, some jobs call for painted interiors or other finish treatments, so I always choose the sheet material to suit the job.

The next step is to cut your basic parts (sides, tops and cabinet floors) to size. Because I’m building each job to genuinely custom dimensions, some base cabinets may not be designed to end up 24″ deep or 34-3/4″ high. (For example, I love a 38″-high counter. It should go without saying that the carcase height must be adjusted to allow for the thickness of whichever counter material you’ll be using.) And even if most of the uppers in a kitchen job will be 12″ deep, one may be a 5″-deep spice cabinet, while another may be 16″ deep.

Rip all of the sides and floors to width. The edges and corners of sheet goods may not be square, and they often have minor damage, so it’s ideal to make the first rip slightly overwidth, then turn it around and rip the other edge to the size you require. That way you’ll have two square, clean edges for joinery.

After ripping, cut the parts to length. There are various ways to do this. Aside from cutting each part accurately to length, it’s important to cut the ends square. You can do this with a track saw if you have one. Alternatively you can use a straightedge and a pattern cutting bit to rout one end square, then crosscut on a table saw, running that end along the fence. (The same technique will work with a radial arm saw for the second cut, which trims the piece to length.) My current method is to crosscut one end of each piece using a slider on my table saw, then cut it to length using the fence. Be sure you mark each part clearly as you cut it.

My method for joining cabinet floors to sides may not be refined, but it’s quick, simple and strong. I use a spacer made from scrap 3/4″ plywood to position the floor and support it. Twin-thread screws run in through the cabinet sides will fasten the whole thing together.

Your elevations will determine how high the kick needs to be and whether it will be flush or recessed. Calculate the height of the space that will be be neath the cabinet floor and rip spacers from scrap plywood to this width, then cut them to length. If your kick will be flush, the spacer should be a hair under the width of the cabinet sides in length; if the kick will be recessed, the spacer should be a hair under the width of the cutout portion at the bottom of each cabinet side.

Next, drill for the screws that will tie the sides together with the floor.

Most base cabinets do not need a solid plywood top. A strip several inches wide at the front and back offers plenty of material to tie the sides together and support a counter, and using less material lightens the weight of these substantial cabinets while minimizing waste. Sink bases in particular do not need a solid top; the vast majority of a sink base’s top will be cut out to accommodate the sink. For narrow cabinets (those 18″ or less wide) it’s usually quicker to go ahead and make a solid plywood top, following the same directions as those for a strip top.

The strips for a particular cabinet will be the same length as the floor for that cabinet, so cut them to length at the same time. The sides of the cabinet will be joined to these strips with twin-thread screws, but I also use biscuit joints, for increased strength as well as a positive means of locating the parts during assembly. Mark each strip with the cabinet name or number and “front” or “back,” so you’ll be able to identify quickly which end is right and left, and which long edge faces forward. It’s a good idea to have at least two biscuits in each strip to help prevent the strips from twisting during assembly.

If you have ever found yourself on hands and knees, searching for that custard pan in the very back of a base cabinet, you’ll understand why most cabinets today are made with drawers or pull-out trays on full-extension mechanical slides instead of with shelves concealed by doors. I rarely put shelves in base cabinets, but I do use them in upper cabinets and in shallow base units such as bookshelves.

When a cabinet will have adjustable shelves, I usually use 1/4″ pin-style supports, which are unobtrusive, extremely strong (I have used them to store large shelves of LPs) and fast. Now is the time to drill shelf support holes, because you can clamp the cabinet sides together and mark them at the same time. Lay out the positions with a long square.

Shelf spacing may seem like a no-brainer, but even here it’s worth paying attention to a few considerations:

• There is no point putting shelf support holes too close to the cabinet floor or top (or, in cases where there will be drawers above the shelf compartment, too close to the drawers) where there would not be enough room to store anything on the shelves. Think about what the shelves will need to hold and plan their spacing accordingly. If the bottom of the cabinet will be holding flower vases that are 12″ tall, there may not be any point putting shelf support holes lower than about 13″ above the cabinet floor.
• Holes at the back of the cabinet should be about 1″ forward from the back edge to allow enough space for fingers when inserting and removing supports.
• Holes near the front of the cabinet should be positioned close enough to the front edge of the shelves that they prevent the shelves from tipping when someone is putting an object away or taking it out. At the same time, take any lipping at the front edge of the shelf into account. In general it’s a good idea to center the front shelf support holes about 5/8″ on center behind the back face of a shelf lipping that hangs below the underside of the shelf.
• Consider how much adjustability is really necessary for the shelves in a given cabinet. For cabinets that will store shorter items such as juice glasses and dishware, closer spacing may be warranted; I often lay these out at 1-1/4″ on center. For cabinets storing large items such as tall jars of dry goods, 2″ on center may be more practical. The point is to allow as much versatility in positioning the shelves as may be needed while avoiding the visual busy-ness of too many holes.

Assembly Time

With the basic carcase joints cut and shelf support holes drilled, you’re ready to glue up the cabinets. Run a bead of glue along the top edge of each floor spacer, then stand the sides on the floor, front edge facing up. (You can lean each side against a workbench, stationary machine or sturdy trash can to hold it temporarily.)

Set the cabinet floor in place between the sides, and clamp loosely. Depending on the size of the assembly and whether you have a helper, it may be more practical to hold the floor and sides together by clamping the floor to the bottom spacers instead of clamping across the cabinet’s width. At this point the clamp is just to hold the parts together while you insert the top (or top strips); there will be time to adjust the fit and get things square.

Now apply glue to the biscuit slots for the top (or top strips), insert the biscuits, and set the top in place. Apply a couple of clamps to hold the assembly together while you adjust the fit.

After squaring the cabinet, sight across the top edges to check for winding. Shim at the bottom as necessary to remove twist, then drill and screw. Let the cabinet sit until the glue has set, per the glue manufacturer’s instructions.

Vertical Dividers
Plywood that’s prefinished on both sides comes into its own for vertical dividers. I measure for dividers at this point and fasten them in place with screws.

Instead of using a tape measure, I cut a couple of pieces of scrap plywood (one for the bottom, the other for the top) to the distance between the divider and the nearest cabinet side. Clamp the scrap in place and you have an instant way to drill the pilot holes, 3/8″ on center from the edge of the scrap. This method also makes locating the divider a snap when you’re ready to screw it in place.

Of course, you can’t insert that divider until you’ve cut it. Don’t precut dividers to size; cut them to fit. Otherwise you may find that your divider is too small. The most accurate way to determine a divider’s length is by setting one end in place and marking the other.

Wide cabinets should have support feet below or near vertical dividers to prevent sag. Make these from strips of 3/4″ plywood cut to the same height as the spacers supporting the cabinet sides. Screw a batten on each side of the foot through which you can fasten to the underside of the cabinet floor.

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Excerpted from Nancy R, Hiller’s “Kitchen Think” – which I cannot recommend highly enough if you’re considering a kitchen renovation. And doubly so if you’re considering a sympathetic renovation for an older home

The following is excerpted from Nancy R. Hiller’s “Kitchen Think: A guide to design and construction, from refurbishing to renovation.”

For two decades, Nancy made a living by turning limitations into creative, lively and livable kitchens for her clients. This, her final how-to book, is an invitation to learn from both her completed kitchen designs (plus kitchens from a few others) and from the way she worked.

Unlike most kitchen design books, “Kitchen Think” is a woodworker’s guide to designing and furnishing the kitchen, from a down-to-the-studs renovation to refacing existing cabinets. And Nancy shows you how it can be done without spending a fortune or adding significantly to your local landfill.

In this excerpt Nancy gives options for mounting drawers – handy when facing a kitchen renovation or for any casework where a drawer is included.

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1. Wooden Slides

Traditionally, drawers have slid on wooden runners: strips of wood tenoned into horizontal rails at the face of a cabinet. In casework where a drawer will not be guided by the cabinet’s sides – for example, when the cabinet has a face frame that protrudes into the drawer opening – the runners are fitted with guides to keep the drawers from sliding left or right and binding as they’re closed.

Wooden runners have several qualities to recommend them:

• They work wonderfully when drawers are well-fitted. When it comes to fine furniture, they’re the gold standard, not least because it takes finesse to make a drawer fit snugly while not so tightly that it’s a challenge to open and close.

• Their only cost is your labor.

• The drawer front is the finished face.

• They let your drawer sides and joinery shine without intrusion by metal hardware.

At the same time, wooden drawer slides are less than ideal in some respects:

• They don’t allow for full extension. Once you pull the drawer out to a certain point, it will sag and can fall out of its opening.

• A well-fitted drawer can stick in humid weather where humidity fluctuates significantly.

For decades, cabinetmakers have had access to mechanical slides, the features of which have improved steadily. Today there’s a variety of options offered by manufacturers such as Blum, Accuride, Salice, Knape & Vogt and more. I cover just a couple here.

Mechanical slides have a few advantages over traditional wooden runners, even if they lack the cachet that comes with a piston-fit drawer. They’re quiet, smooth-running and allow you to pull a drawer out fully without danger of it tipping its contents all over the floor, or worse, falling out and being damaged.

2. Side-mounted Ball Bearing Slides

Side-mount ball bearing slides, such as those made by Accuride, are affordable, dependable and hardwearing. They come with a huge variety of optional features, among them a detent (helpful in cases where you want to use whatever is on the pull-out surface, such as a keyboard, without the drawer or tray closing when you touch it); extra-heavy load capacity; specialty slides for file drawers, lateral files, and so forth. Other advantages include:

• They’re extremely easy to install in casework. You can put them almost anywhere you want, mounting the support to the cabinet side or using mounting plates to attach the hardware to the cabinet’s front and back.

• They only impose one constraint on the dimensions of your drawer – the width of the drawer must be at or just a hair under the precise width between the slides once they’ve been installed. Beyond this, you can use these slides on drawers that are deeper (from front to back) or shallower than the slides, depending on your application.

• It doesn’t matter how your drawer bottom fits into the drawer, i.e. whether it’s flush at the bottom surface, fitted in slips, or slid into grooves in the drawer front and sides.

• While this flexibility may not sound so impressive in principle, it can be a life-saver in rare circumstances where you need the combination of affordable price, full extension and flexibility in drawer construction that such hardware allows.

These slides allow the drawer to be removed simply by disengaging a lever. To replace the drawer, slide it carefully into position – if you don’t align the parts perfectly, you can damage the slides – then push until you hear a “click.” Now pull the drawer out and close it fully to check the fit.

Before you install set screws, the slides are adjustable up and down in addition to forward and backward, thanks to slots on both parts – the part that goes on the drawer and the part that goes in the cabinet. Some models also have screwdriver-adjustable cams.

As for drawbacks, side-mounted ball bearing slides are not completely silent; there’s a metal-on-metal sound when the arms of the slides are closing or opening, but it’s minor. These slides also take up some width. This space varies somewhat, depending on the model; most require 1/2″ on each side. As a result, in most applications, you need to cover the front of the drawer with an applied face. This face can be inset, as shown here, half overlay or full overlay.

When choosing these or other mechanical slides, read the specs and installation instructions to make sure the slides are compatible with your design.

My least favorite feature of these slides is their visibility. Although they come in different finishes (many lines are available in white, black and stainless, in addition to zinc), they do detract from the pristine beauty of a nicely finished drawer side – at least, when the drawer is open. When the drawer is closed, the slides are invisible.

3. Self-closing Undermount Slides

Since about the turn of the millennium, cabinetmakers have had access to a type of slide that combines full extension and smooth, silent operation with almost complete invisibility. The Blum Tandem is the most widely known version, but as soon as other manufacturers saw how popular the new design was with cabinet manufacturers and their customers, they began devising their own variations on the theme.

Not only are these slides silent, smooth-running, full extension and invisible, when fitted with the right locking devices (available from the same suppliers as the slides themselves), they offer a new dimension in adjustability over previous kinds of drawer slide hardware. You can move the drawer face up or down, forward or backward, tilt it to make it flush with the face frame and move it from side to side – a boon when you’re dealing with inset drawer faces in particular. These features come with some strict requirements:

• There are precise dimensional requirements: Drawers must be just the right width and depth (front to back) to fit specific slides. These and other specifications are laid out in a handy instruction guide published by hardware manufacturers.

• There needs to be a 1/2″ recess beneath the drawer bottom so that the sides and front will conceal the runners.

• You need to drill a couple of holes at the back of the drawer for the tilt mechanism.

• Because the position of the slide hardware is fixed in relation to the drawer sides (it has to go below the drawer bottom), you need to be more precise in positioning the hardware inside the cabinet than you do with sidemounted ball bearing hardware. You must also leave more clearance in height than with side-mounted hardware, which can eat up space, depending on other elements of a cabinet’s design.

As with the side-mounted slides, there will be a bit of space on either side of the drawer with undermount hardware. This space works out to about 5/16″ on each side. An applied drawer face hides the gaps.

The following is excerpted from Nancy R. Hiller’s “Kitchen Think: A guide to design and construction, from refurbishing to renovation.”

For two decades, Nancy made a living by turning limitations into creative, lively and livable kitchens for her clients. This, her final how-to book, is an invitation to learn from both her completed kitchen designs (plus kitchens from a few others) and from the way she worked.

Unlike most kitchen design books, “Kitchen Think” is a woodworker’s guide to designing and furnishing the kitchen, from a down-to-the-studs renovation to refacing existing cabinets. And Nancy shows you how it can be done without spending a fortune or adding significantly to your local landfill.

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Whether you’re planning a kitchen for a newly built house or remodeling an existing kitchen, there are some basic steps to getting started. The first step is to break what may feel like an overwhelming task into manageable components.

Here are a few examples of kitchen remodeling scenarios:

• Gut the kitchen. Whether you’re gutting the space to beef up structural elements, enhance insulation or simply to get the ceiling, walls and floor level, flat and plumb, a hardcore gut usually entails new cabinets. This doesn’t necessarily mean cabinets that are newly built; some complete remodels incorporate salvaged cabinets, modified to work in their new space. But the idea here is that you’re starting from scratch.
• Partial remodel: Keep the best of what you have and add to it. This scenario encompasses kitchens that have a few original cabinets that are charming and perfectly fit the character of the house, but there are too few of them (or they have impractical counters, or they need to be refinished and have various parts tuned up etc.).
• Refacing existing cabinets in cases where the existing cabinets are in good shape and were well made, but you want to change the aesthetic of the kitchen.
• Modify existing cabinets to make them more functional, as when old drawers were poorly made and slid on wooden runners, and you decide to replace them with newly made drawers that are easy to clean and mounted on full-extension slides.

Assess the Situation
Think about how you use the kitchen and what you would like to change. Do you live alone, or are you the only one who cooks? Do you work with someone else in the kitchen – i.e. do you need space for more than one cook? Your answers will have a bearing on considerations such as the space you need between cabinets or appliances and central features such as tables or islands.

Do you have children in your kitchen, whether they live with you or visit often? If so, think about how you can avoid creating sharp corners, especially those at children’s eye level. Also choose hardware without tight spring closures that can hurt little fingers, and plan to keep poison or alcohol out of reach.

Do you really cook or do you just want a nice-looking kitchen? How much do you really want to spend on appliances and fixtures marketed as “professional” or “high performance?”

Now list the best features of your existing space. These may include:

• Proportions and shape of the room
• Natural light from windows or skylights
• The view through windows
• Existing cabinetry, counters or other elements, such as a lovely old wooden floor.
  Make a wish-list of elements you’d like to add.

Now list the things you consider detractions. Examples may include:

• The room is dark
• There’s no window over the sink (nor is adding one an option)
• The room feels cold
• The room is tiny and has too many doorways

Next note any constraints imposed by the existing space. While some may be able to be changed, time and budget permitting, others may not be. Instead of viewing what you can’t change as an obstacle, think of how it could be an opportunity with the benefit of some creative thinking. For example, if your kitchen is tiny, as architect Christine Matheu’s was (see pages 342-345), take note of that – then think about whether there are ways to make it feel lighter and more spacious. In Christine’s case, the answer was to add new skylights, enlarge the window on the exterior wall and install a large window on an interior wall that overlooks the entryway to her house. But the ultimate genius move by Christine was to open up one portion of the wall between the kitchen and dining room to create a space for the cook to converse with family and friends while preserving a clear distinction between the work and public spaces.

The goal of this exercise is to begin defining priorities.

Now move on to looks.

The steps above are general; they make no mention of your kitchen’s aesthetic. Think about how your kitchen looks now and how you want it to look. Do you want it to feel more in sync with other rooms? If so, you may take your design cues from those. But if you’re leaning toward a period style, keep some caveats in mind (see pages 295-301); also, if you want a period kitchen to be convincing, you need to bone up on some kitchen history, bearing in mind that kitchens of yore were not public spaces, but the servants’ domain.

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Order of Work
Kitchens are complex rooms with many working parts. For the best job, you should think carefully about how these different parts will go together before you start building. A typical order of work is as follows:

1. Demolition.
2. If you’ve gutted to the studs, joists and rafters, take this opportunity to add blocking for cabinet installation. Trim or shim framing lumber to make the walls, ceiling and floor flat and level. Insulate exterior walls as appropriate.
3. Rough plumbing (sink supplies and drainage, gas for stove) and electrical wiring (lighting, appliances, dishwasher, fridge, stove, undercabinet lighting, switches etc.).
4. Patch or replace ceiling, walls and subfloor as necessary. Tape and finish joints.
5. Prime and paint at least one coat of color.
6. Finish floors (lay tile or sheet flooring; sand wood floor and finish).
7. Install cabinets.
8. Measure and make templates for counters.
9. Fit doors and drawers (if fitting on site).
10. Remove doors and drawers for finishing in shop (ditto).
11. Install counters.
12. Install backsplash or tile.
13. Install sink and faucet.
14. Replace doors and drawers, install set screws and final hardware.
15. Final painting.
16. Finish electrical – install the light fixtures, disposal, appliances, switches etc.
    
    

The following is excerpted from Nancy R. Hiller‘s “Kitchen Think” – a book I’ve been consulting almost daily as I work on the plans/design/dreams for the pantry and kitchen in my 1905 house. But every time I look at it, I tear up a bit. I am still reeling from the fact that I can’t just send a few pictures Nancy’s way and ask for her opinion and advice. But I’m far sorrier that I can’t just sit down with her for a drink and a good gab about our gardens, pets and other seemingly inconsequential things that mean so much. I miss her singular and joyous laugh – and everything else Nancy.

– Fitz

No book titled “Kitchen Think” would be complete without a variety of miscellaneous objects the inspiration for that title connotes. Here’s a smattering of suggestions for details that are practical and fun.

For two decades, Nancy made a living by turning limitations into creative, lively and livable kitchens for her clients. “Kitchen Think” is an invitation to learn from both her completed kitchen designs (plus kitchens from a few others) and from the way she worked in her Bloomington, Ind., workshop.

Unlike most kitchen design books, “Kitchen Think” is a woodworker’s guide to designing and furnishing the kitchen, from a down-to-the-studs renovation to refacing existing cabinets. And Nancy shows you how it can be done without spending a fortune or adding significantly to your local landfill.