Thread: Building your own Kitchen Cabinets

PWH, this is the look Im going for in the studio!

No handles and push to open drawers and cupboards.

A very nice job indeed.

Originally Posted by P.W.H.

most of the ply is finished with tung oil, as are the bench tops. I used polyurethane on the doors below the sink and in the steamy area above the cooktop. In the end, you can't really see a difference. .....

Nice, PWH

Any particular reason why you used two different finishes, especially as ....you can't really see a difference......?

I would have thought that either was most suitable, perhaps with a leaning towards the poly in the hard-wear areas.


Cheers

Graeme

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Nice, PWH

Any particular reason why you used two different finishes, especially as ....you can't really see a difference......?

I would have thought that either was most suitable, perhaps with a leaning towards the poly in the hard-wear areas.


Cheers

Graeme

SWMBO made a salient point regarding the hard-wear areas: if you scratch the poly, it's a major job to cut it back and reapply (particularly once water gets into the
scratch and starts to discolour the wood - I had that happen to my white ash kitchen table). Oil, she said, is easy to go over with the cabinet scraper and wipe with
an oily rag. Yes, been there, done that: some tradies put concrete grit on the cooktop bench and scratched it, the vinyl guy went and put carpet glue on the breakfast
bench ... cabinet scraper and some 600 grit wet&dry lubed with tung oil fixed both as good as new.

I used the poly in the particularly wet areas because tung oil takes ages to cure properly. Just as well I did the benchtops months ago, before the cabinets. So I
figured that poly would maybe be better at preventing water damage in the early stages. Once the tung oil is cured, water just beads on the surface anyway.
But I wasn't sure about it on the birch ply, particularly the end-grain (if you can call it that).

-Peter

Well. It's been a few months! Nearly 3 in fact, but the job is done, so thought I'd circle back here to a thread that gave me loads of inspiration and actually helped me a lot.

New kitchen done. Started on 3rd July with demolition and have a working kitchen as of today 27th September. Still a few odds and ends to do like kick boards, Architraves, skirtings, paint touch ups and some bulkheads, handles & splashback - but we have running water, appliances work and it's a kitchen that can be used. I'll have the other stuff done in no time.

All up costs came in just over $40k broken roughly into:

$10k cabinets including 2 pack paint and routed shaker style doors ( MDF i believe ) & all top of the line blum hardware, legrabox drawers etc.
$10k benchtops + a few extra shelves and wine rack material that isn't shown, including a 300 x 1700 x 40mm thick peice of the same material used in the benchtops to cover the wall edge ( yes, it is from the cut out so grain will run nicely up that wall ).
$9k appliances, lighting, sink, tap etc
$6k floor ( house had to be entirely re-levelled + new timber floor installed ).
$4k in trades

All in all, saved $20k off that original quote ( granted a few costs still to come ), and I'm damn sure the quality of what I have is far above what I would have got. Appliances are Miele & Bosch as well as Blanco sink/tap.

The bench tops are the jewel in the crown and are 'Messmate' reclaimed mixed hardwood from the now demolished Kinnears rope factory on Ballarat Rd in Melbourne ( built in 1902 ) finished in Osmo PolyX Hardwax Oil. Done by a Timber Revival here in Melbourne. Those guys are the real deal and did a fantastic job. I simply didn't have the room, experience or the equipment ( and enough strong friends ) to do a job like this myself, so SWMBO made a good call and opted to have them do this. I'm glad we did!

Assembling the cabinets was honestly as easy as building IKEA stuff really. Except you use melamine glue & actual screws, so it's a bit more solid ( melamine glue really works by the way! ). it only took me about 2 weekends + some after hours to build it all. 10 - 15mins per cabinet.
I did the install myself. Again, not hard. Just take time & check levels.

Longest waiting/down time was just over 3 and a bit weeks to get the counter tops made ( 3 weeks from template to install ). Also we lost about 3 weeks due to the floor needing to be re-leveled, otherwise we would have had this done first week of September.

Super happy with the finish and I'd recommend doing it this way ( custom flatpack ) to anyone who has a bit of nous and a workshop space to build the cabinets in. Yes, we had to do a lot of coordinating with electrician/plumber but it really wasn't too hard. assembling the cabinets is an easy way to save some serious $$

Am I sick of take-away food? Well, SWMBO was so bloody organised and froze SO much food + had stuff that could be heated in a portable convection oven that it really wasn't too bad. 4 or 5 out of 7 nights wasn't take away. One thing i did find, was having a fridge in the lounge room is very handy! I may actually miss that!

I have zillions of photos but here a few key ones.

I'll leave it to you to guess which one is the 'before'

IMG-20180927-WA0013.jpgIMG-20180927-WA0015.jpg20180927_143648.jpgIMG_20180924_184851_361.jpgIMG-20180927-WA0020.jpg20180704_073837.jpg20180704_165423.jpg

Sorry, you will need to pull the fridge out and put it back in the lounge.

The cat is stuck between the fridge and wall.

Good job. Well done.

ooo, that wall paper in photo 7.

Ouch!

Originally Posted by Sebastiaan76

Well. It's been a few months! Nearly 3 in fact, but the job is done, so thought I'd circle back here to a thread that gave me loads of inspiration and actually helped me a lot.

New kitchen done. Started on 3rd July with demolition and have a working kitchen as of today 27th September. Still a few odds and ends to do like kick boards, Architraves, skirtings, paint touch ups and some bulkheads, handles & splashback - but we have running water, appliances work and it's a kitchen that can be used. I'll have the other stuff done in no time.

All up costs came in just over $40k broken roughly into:

$10k cabinets including 2 pack paint and routed shaker style doors ( MDF i believe ) & all top of the line blum hardware, legrabox drawers etc.
$10k benchtops + a few extra shelves and wine rack material that isn't shown, including a 300 x 1700 x 40mm thick peice of the same material used in the benchtops to cover the wall edge ( yes, it is from the cut out so grain will run nicely up that wall ).
$9k appliances, lighting, sink, tap etc
$6k floor ( house had to be entirely re-levelled + new timber floor installed ).
$4k in trades

All in all, saved $20k off that original quote ( granted a few costs still to come ), and I'm damn sure the quality of what I have is far above what I would have got. Appliances are Miele & Bosch as well as Blanco sink/tap.

The bench tops are the jewel in the crown and are 'Messmate' reclaimed mixed hardwood from the now demolished Kinnears rope factory on Ballarat Rd in Melbourne ( built in 1902 ) finished in Osmo PolyX Hardwax Oil. Done by a Timber Revival here in Melbourne. Those guys are the real deal and did a fantastic job. I simply didn't have the room, experience or the equipment ( and enough strong friends ) to do a job like this myself, so SWMBO made a good call and opted to have them do this. I'm glad we did!

Assembling the cabinets was honestly as easy as building IKEA stuff really. Except you use melamine glue & actual screws, so it's a bit more solid ( melamine glue really works by the way! ). it only took me about 2 weekends + some after hours to build it all. 10 - 15mins per cabinet.
I did the install myself. Again, not hard. Just take time & check levels.

Longest waiting/down time was just over 3 and a bit weeks to get the counter tops made ( 3 weeks from template to install ). Also we lost about 3 weeks due to the floor needing to be re-leveled, otherwise we would have had this done first week of September.

Super happy with the finish and I'd recommend doing it this way ( custom flatpack ) to anyone who has a bit of nous and a workshop space to build the cabinets in. Yes, we had to do a lot of coordinating with electrician/plumber but it really wasn't too hard. assembling the cabinets is an easy way to save some serious $$

Am I sick of take-away food? Well, SWMBO was so bloody organised and froze SO much food + had stuff that could be heated in a portable convection oven that it really wasn't too bad. 4 or 5 out of 7 nights wasn't take away. One thing i did find, was having a fridge in the lounge room is very handy! I may actually miss that!

I have zillions of photos but here a few key ones.

I'll leave it to you to guess which one is the 'before'

IMG-20180927-WA0013.jpgIMG-20180927-WA0015.jpg20180927_143648.jpgIMG_20180924_184851_361.jpgIMG-20180927-WA0020.jpg20180704_073837.jpg20180704_165423.jpg

wow i saw this on instagram - timber revival did the bench top yeah? looks great. it was cool how on that larger bench they glued it together on site and it came together nicely!

even my wife said that the timber benchtop was gorgeous, so well done to your wife for picking that mob, they've done great!

Originally Posted by qwertyu

wow i saw this on instagram - timber revival did the bench top yeah? looks great. it was cool how on that larger bench they glued it together on site and it came together nicely!

Yeah, Here are a few photos I took on the day during the tricky part.

I now spend half my days staring at the benchtops! haha

20180924_090531.jpgIMG-20180924-WA0003.jpg

https://www.instagram.com/p/BoLj09XlA6I/

what finish is used on the bench top?

Osmo Polyx Hardwax Oil

that looks fantastic!

Do you know how they did the joint in the waterfall? Domino?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Yeah. Pre made dominos. came together perfect.