Thread: Kitchen renovation started

Thanks Cal. Awesome project BTW.

Hey there Cal. Fantastic thread and great pics. I'm just starting the same process and have a couple of questions. Are your cabinets built from the pre-cut melamine that Bunnings sells that comes with the front edge already finished or did you build from full sheets and do the edging yourself? I'm impressed with the look of your benchtop finish but not confident with that process myself. Bunnings sells a benchtop lacquer which I planned on using but wondering whether it would be any good.
Thanks

Originally Posted by R3novator

Hey there Cal. Fantastic thread and great pics. I'm just starting the same process and have a couple of questions. Are your cabinets built from the pre-cut melamine that Bunnings sells that comes with the front edge already finished or did you build from full sheets and do the edging yourself? ......

It will be interesting to see what Cal says to your question.

I did a complete kitchen renovation about 7 years ago and I hate cutting melamine, MDF, chipboard, et al because of all those nasty chemicals and dust.

My solution was to get a local joinery to supply, cut and edge band all melamine components and I then built the carcases. The end cost was about $50 dearer than I could have bought the melamine from Uptons and considerably cheaper than Bunnings.

The advantages of doing it this way are:

• joinery can buy melamine considerably cheaper than retail,
• they cut it far more accurately than I could (within 0.1 mm),
• absolutely no waste or mistakes,
• their edge banding machine does a far better job than any iron-on edge banding,
• don't have to handle full sheets of melamine,
• Do not breath dust and fumes.

It really was a win/win situation.

I built it from full sheets, ironing on edge strip and all. I have a decent shed set up for dust extraction etc. so it was fine to do myself. The epoxy I have used before, I even spent time repairing rowing boats in a past life.
I think do what you can manage comfortably and confidently with a kitchen, it gets expensive quickly if it’s your first big project and you mess it up. Work out what you can do yourself and outsource what you can’t.
I have done all sorts of things in the past which has given me the experience to tackle this myself.
Best of luck with your project!

The bit I have not mentioned in this whole thread is that I cut everything out using a track saw and a triton 2000! Again, I have used these for a number of years and know the limitations and what I can do with them. There are way better ways to get better cuts in melamine than either of these but you would be hard pressed to find fault in the finished kitchen.