Thread: Building your own Kitchen Cabinets

We renovated the kitchen last year and I toyed with idea of doing it myself but eventually decided against it. There were pros and cons either way, but the biggest factor for us was that I simply didn't have the time. With four young kids we didn't want a kitchen reno going on for months.

Some of the factors to consider are:
- If you do it yourself you can choose a good quality ply for the carcasses. Most cabinet makers just use chip board which I'm not a fan of at all. In the end I managed to find a kitchen cabinetmaker who would use decent ply.
- I was after solid wood, which costs a fortune if you don't do it yourself. But in the end we compromised and went with vinyl wrap. I still would have liked solid wood drawers and door fronts but it wasn't to be.
- The cost of good quality hardware (like Blum) is nothing in comparison to the total cost of getting a kitchen company in. The Blum hardware that got installed in our kitchen is adjustable every which way, which is great if you're doing it yourself as you've got some leeway to make the cabinets line up perfectly.
- Any excuse to buy more tools is great. Many times I've justified a tool purchase by saying well, if I paid some guy to do this it would cost me more than a new router/tracksaw/table saw whatever.
- Doing it yourself opens up the options for many more materials, colours etc, and gives you options for cool bespoke features. On the other hand, I imagine a kitchen company will get a much better price on something like vinyl wrap than you are likely to get if you just turn up to the manufacturers yourself as a retail customer.

Norm Abram does a few New Yankee episodes where he makes some kitchen cabinets from scratch. Now Norm has a way of making everything look easy, but if you're thinking of doing it yourself then I'd suggest watching those episodes to gauge whether you think you're up to the task. And it will also help you plan it so that your time between demolishing the old kitchen and installing the new one is minimised. The episodes are all on YouTube. Can't remember the episode/season numbers but if you google it I'm sure you'll find them.

Good luck!

G'day Seb,

I would be inclined to make the doors and drawer fronts myself and use the cabinet and drawers bases which are shown on the Bunnies website. If you find a need to fill a non-standard gap, you can always knock up a melamine carcase yourself. The counter top is a different matter and its complexity depends entirely on you. A Domino is the right tool for a solid timber top and you will probably need to have it professionally coated.

Good luck with it,
mick

I have thought about this as well, my workshop is more of a medium sized commercial workshop in terms of capacity and it is more than capable of making cabinets, the thing that stopped me from going any further is that I cant find someone who has a decent coating machine and willing to coat my cabinets (the kitchen companies only coat their own stuff so you have to buy their cabinets to have them coated professionally), I even have proper spray booth setup (Kremlin spray gun/fan/filters/lights/pneumatic sanders...etc)but dont have the space for the booth. I have no problem making solid timber fronts but solid timber does not match the interior theme of the house,

When you say 'coating' are you talking a 2pack finish?

Originally Posted by Sebastiaan76

When you say 'coating' are you talking a 2pack finish?

yes... or whatever the finish to make the board look like a piano finish...

The vast amount of finishing product and coating is like a whole new planet to me, I seriously dont have the time to explore it, I make enough from what I do so happier to stay in my hole...

I've built and installed 6 kitchens for others so far, and one for ourselves. I also have a sliding table panel saw. I had the misfortune to get involved in installing a Bunnies, never again.

The Haefele flat packs I used to get from Masters were the ducks nuts. For odd sizes I buy the next size up and trim. I can still get them in Perth on order from Home Hardware.
Early on I did the costing and found the diff between the best price I could get for melamine, cutting, drilling, hinges, feet etc. and buying a flatpack on a 450 wide pantry was around $15.00.
Patently not worth the effort and risk, coz there is a small risk in all of the cutting, and what you get is chip free edges.

I make the doors and drawer fronts, fancy rangehood canopies from MRMDF. Then spray paint with oil based enamel. So far even in kitchens with several young boys they tell me it's holding up really well.

I build the tops using a 19mm MR particle board and timber on top. I rebate 40 x 40mm timber to sit on the edge to give the solid timber look and glue and pocket screw that in place. Then biscuit and glue the 19mm boards of selected timber to it
Wood glue on the edges and Bostik ultraset to hold the boards down. I also use my secret flooring stapler randomly as I go across the top. Once dry I turn it over and give the bottom a couple of coats of something oil based I have lying around.

Turn over, flatten as necessary with a handplane, and I have a 300mm random orbit sander. 3/4 coats of flooring poly on top with a wet sand inbetween.

Shoalwater2.jpgKitchen 2.jpg

Easy as...If you have the right gear. Melamine cabinets require a sliding table saw with scriber blade, hinges require hinge hole borer, edging requires an edge bander. Yes, these processes can be done by hand, but it is slow and labour intensive. May be better to get material cut and edged and then do the assembly yourself. This method still offers a considerable saving as most of the labour is in the initial design, dimensional calculations, assembly and installation. The actual cutting and edging of the components represents only a couple of hours for a good operator. A small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. So you work out your cutting list, work it onto sheets, give it to your ''local bloke" and pick it up when cut. Knock up the cabinets on the week end, followed by the bench tops, while you are waiting for the doors to come back from the paint shop and your ready to drop them in the following weekend. Never hurt a bit.

Made in Australia particle board and MDF products are pretty good (for their intended use). For domestic cabinetry, I'd disagree that ply is better, MRMDF and MR melamine PB will easily last 15-20 years. Good quality ply is quite pricey in comparison and doesn't really give you much more in return for the extra cost.

I will be doing my kitchen cabinets in about two months. I decided to start with the laundry as it is two wide cabinets and a counter top, a good starting point I thought and to find and fix any problems I'd face.

I used 16mm HMR melamine, glued using melamine glue and stapled together. As long as your cabinet parts are cut accurately, assembly and getting them square is easy. Buy adjustable plastic feet and clips that allow easy installation of a kick board. I'm doing all drawers below the counters. The laundry drawers are out of 16mm HMR melamine as well, again, easy enough if your parts are cut accurately. Just glued and stapled and drawer bottom rebated and glued in. Keep in mind that the cabinet hardware will have spacing and set out requirements, so pick them early in the process and build your drawers and doors around them. I've had good results with a sharp 80 tooth blade in avoiding chipping.

For my drawer fronts I initially made 'Shaker styke' using MDF and painted white (search Peter Millard on Youtube, excellent videos for MDF stuff). Not difficult but accuracy is required in cutting (again). I'm thinking of changing the fronts to white oak with a limed finish instead, white oak and spotted gum look nice near each other. If you want your fronts and doors professionally sprayed, look for a 'kitchen cabinet sprayer'. They're the guys that will redo your old cabinet fronts. Cabinet shops that make cabinets probably won't be too interested.

The countertop is where things got fun. Coincidentally, I'm using spotted gum. The biggest problem I faced with it and will continue to face is the sheer weight of the boards, 1.8mx0.7m @ 38mm thick weighs ~50kg, for reference . If you're going to go solid wood, rip your boards down to 100mm or so. Laminating them back together afterwards keeps your grain continuity (mostly) and minimises wood movement issues. Using a giant slab is not a good idea because it will move and when it does, it'll be a heartache. I've also been advised that if using a wide board or slab, make relief cuts on the underside to minimise movement issues. Spotted gum has a reputation for being difficult to glue, I've used Titebond II and Purbond polyurethane glue and both have been excellent. My gluing surfaces were freshly planed. The effort is worth it though, I think the countertops made from long boards look top notch. I made the mistake of having too much pressure on the boards when clamping up so my countertops developed a cup and bow. That was fixed by...

A router sled and bed jig for flattening. I am so impressed by how well it works, it's not even funny. I was initially going at it with a hand plane then a belt sander but really, the router jig is where it is at unless you have a massive drum sander. If you don't have some burly help and a trailer, consider the logistics of trying to cart it elsewhere to be flattened. For me, it made more sense to go DIY with the router jig.

For the kitchen cabinets, I'm going to have the supplier cut the material and edge band. It's a relatively small cost, but saves on time and wrangling large sheets. Unlike Bunnings cut jobs, a proper sheet goods supplier will give you super clean cut, totally accurate parts.

The other thing I will be doing differently is gluing the countertop boards in batches. For the laundry I did the whole lot in one go and it was pretty stressful. With the kitchen, I'm going to need two countertops and one of them will 3.6x0.9m. I'm pretty sure I won't have enough open glue time even with Purbond to get that done. Instead, it's going to be three sets of boards then glued one final time. I'm still thinking of cutting the boards for this countertop in half and using a scarf joint with brass rivets to make it interesting, instead of a naughty 'hope no one notices' secret. Wrangling a 3.6mx100mm piece of spotted gum is making me feel tired just thinking about it, let alone the full countertop.

And that's about enough rambling.

Have a look here: https://amorinifactoryoutlet.com.au/

We did a reno a few years ago and bought the cabinets from them, not bad for the price.

Or check out IKEA. They use Blum hardware too

+ one for the get cut local and assemble. Unsure why but here in WA anecdotally I've been told the cost of supply, cut and edge is not much short of a finished cabinet price. That's not to say cheap, I mean that the cabbys seem to wanna make nearly the same money for 1/2(?) of the job...

Ikea no thanks...

Definitely worth having a go for yourself, although I would try to find someone that can supply the edged panels, and just assemble them myself. The iron on edging just looks cheap and tacky IMHO. Not sure if the thicker (vinyl?) edging can be bought as a pre-glued option.

Originally Posted by david.elliott

Ikea no thanks...

Why? Because it says Ikea?

We have bookcases from them that have survived 25 years including 5 moves.

Hi Seb

I had a similar experience to you six years ago. We have a galley style kitchen with two rows of benches, one 5 metres long, the other almost 4 m, plus overhead cabinets.

We got five quotes ranging from $60,000 to $80,000 plus plumbing, eletrician, gas and white goods. All included a lot of compromises:

• You cannot have that brand of fittings,
• We use 12 mm melamine,
• We only do rolled formica bench tops,
• All our drawers are the same height,
• We do not do glass panelled doors,
• etc.

Eventually, I decided to do it myself with some sub-contracting. The total cost, including Carara marble bench tops and splash backs, Blum drawer slides and hinges, and very high quality fittings and finish was $15,000. Whites goods, plumbing, gas connection and electrician cost another $15,000.

Kitchen Wall Cabinets.jpgKitchen Benches.jpg
I very carefully measured the kitchen, and then planned the fit out in detail. The floor was not level, corners were not 90 degrees, walls were not perfectly straight or perfectly vertical; plumbing and wiring had to be moved or renewed and gas installed. I learned SketchUp for this planning - it would have been better to have gone straight to a professional CAD program - Rhino, Autocad, or similar.



Then I prepared a cutting list and got a local joinery to supply, cut and edge band all melamine for the carcases. Used 18 mm HMR melamine. I then made all cabinets, drawers and doors. Organised for gas/water plumber, electrician and marble installer to be on stand-by. Triple checked all cabinets complete and to plan; cross checked plan against room.

Next ripped out old kitchen, completely.

• replastered wall where splashback was to go. Old plaster was not straight!
• Sanded and urethaned floor,
• Installed new plumbing and wiring,
• Painted everything - ie walls, ceiling and windows,
• Fitted kickboards to floor imperfections,
• Installed cabinet carcases,
• Marble installers did their thing,
• Electrician and plumber connected new gear.
• Lived on takeaways for three months.

Kitchen works well, and we like the appearance and ambiance.



Cheers

Graeme

Very short reply and my apologies. I have used GEM FINISH a few times in Brayside I think Melbourne.


I think I payed $90/$100 a square metre for a two pack finish.

Also the quote for $60k for the kitchen were they gold benches.

Cheers Matt