B.Howe & Family

I like getting the odd custom job to figure out, especially when it involves materials, equipment, or techniques which I haven’t used before.  Just such an order was Rosemary’s Cupboard.  During a visit a while back, Rosemary requested a cabinet to fit beside the fridge in her kitchen.  We assessed the existing cupboards and measured up the space, then figured out what purpose the new cupboard was to serve.  We were also able to take one of the existing cupboard doors home for style and color matching.

After a bit of sketching, and pondering, we came up with a relatively simple plan which would allow us to try a few new things.  The PDF of our sketch plan is available for download.  It is not by any stretch of the imagination a complete plan of the project as I tend to do a lot of work in my head rather than on paper.  But, it’ll give you the basic idea of what I was after.  This design relied on european-style hinges, drawer sliders, and rail & stile router bits.  [This means we had to go buy some more tools from Lee Valley– Yaay!]

The Body

The body of the cupboard is easy.  It’s just a simple box.  3/4″ oak plywood for the sides, top, bottom, center, and the toekick/base.  1/2″ oak plywood for the back.  The spacers, and crossers were each cut from 3/4″ oak plywood, the spacers being affixed to the sides prior to assembling the rest of the body.  Holes for the adjustable shelf pegs were also drilled.  Then the rest of the pieces were glued and nailed into place.  The 3/4″ plywood crossers being placed last.

Shop Tip:  The hardwood plywoods like to splinter when being cut.  Masking all cut lines with painters tape will reduce this a little, but to ensure good clean cuts invest in a proper cabinetry/plywood saw blade.  Unfortunately, they can run from $85 to $150 but are totally worth the investment, saving you time and waste from bad cuts.

Solid oak trim pieces were cut to create the face of the cupboard body.  These pieces will dress up and hide the plywood edges and make for clean edges.  My original plan was to drill pocket holes and screw these pieces together before attaching to the rest of the body, but I could be more accurate by just gluing and nailing to the plywood directly. 

This basically finished the body.  I would like to note the small indent at the back of the toekick.  This solves a small pet peave I have with most purchased cabinets – getting around the baseboards.  Why should the cabinet have a huge gap behind it?  Anyhow, on to the shelves.

Adjustable Shelves

The holes were drilled in the sides during the body assembly,  so all that was left here was to make the shelf itself.  It is just a piece of 3/4″ oak plywood with a 3/4″ piece of solid oak trim on each side.  The trim again hides the plywood edge, but also gives it a little extra strength to resist sagging across the 43.5″ span.  One shelf is made for the bottom cupboard, two are made for the top.

The Drawers

Basically there are two drawers here. One is roughly 6″ deep, while the other has no depth at all being just a pull-out shelf. Lets look at the pull-out shelf first. 

It is nothing more than a piece of 3/4″ oak plywood.  The drawer slides are attached on either side and a faceplate is fashioned from a piece of solid oak to cover the opening.  The faceplate is attached with screws through the front.  Plugs are fit into the screwholes after finishing.

The 6″ drawer consists of 3/4″ oak plywood sides and a 1/2″ oak plywood bottom.  Dadoes were cut into the sides to receive the bottom piece.  The drawer slides are attached to either side and a faceplate fashioned of solid oak.  The faceplate this time can be attached with screws on the inside of the drawer.

The Doors

This, I was expecting to be the hard part.  Each door required two rails (top and bottom), two stiles (left and right), and a 1/4″ oak plywood panel for the center.  The rails and bottom stile were cut from 1″x4″ oak, while the top stile came from a 1″x6″ oak piece. I cut a template for the top stile, traced it onto a 1″x6″ piece and rough cut the curve on the band saw.  Then it was time to play with the router and the new rail & stile bits.  If you’ve never used them, this is a two bit set where one bit is used to create the inside profile, while the other creates the counter-profile so that the stiles will butt cleanly against the rails.  The top stile was my main concern so I started there.  The bits have bearing wheels so they will ride against a template and act as a trim bit while shaping the edge. I taped my template to the rough cut piece and routered the inside edge. While this bit was in place I slid the other stile and rails through it. I set the other bit in the router and profiled the ends of the stiles. It was very important to use a sacrificial push block here, as the oak chips like crazy near the ends.  Test fitting  the pieces was truly satisfying as they locked tightly together.

The panel was cut from 1/4″ oak plywood.  It slides into a groove created by the rail & stile bits, so very little had to be done to it.  The curve only needed to be rough cut on the bandsaw.  All the pieces were put together, the joints of the rails and stiles were glued, but the panel was left to float.  Clamps were applied and the doors were left to cure for the night.

The Hinges

The last structural component.  The european style hinges are again, remarkably easy to install.  They have a bit of a tolerance for error, and are easy to work with.  Do some research before buying them though.  Aside from different hinges opening at different angles (I used 107° overlay frameless ), there are different hinges for how your door is going to sit on the frame (overlay, offset, inset), and for the type of frame your mounting on (face frame, frameless).  Once you have the correct hinge just follow the instructions.  For mine, I drilled a 1-3/8″ hole with a forstner bit into the rail of the door and mounted a small clip onto the body of the cupboard for each hinge.  When they were all in the right place, I just needed to hold the door up and clip the hinge pieces together.  A few small adjustments to small screws on the hinges made sure that the doors were hanging straight and properly aligned.

Finishing

Of course, just when you get it all together and working you have to take it all apart to make it pretty.  Everything was sanded starting with 100 grit and moving down to 200 grit.  As an afterthought, all the doors and drawer faces received another pass on the  router to put a Roman Ogee profile on the outside edges.  In order to match the existing cupboards, all I needed to apply was a good coat of satin polyurethane.  If you read my previous post regarding Spray Gun Fun then you know how that went.

  And here it is, the completed cupboard.  Everything works the way it is supposed to.  It was all the correct dimensions.  A quick trip to Innisfil to deliver and install it in Rosemary’s kitchen and we were finally done.  The last thing we did was to install the anti-slam devices on the door hinges.  

We are happy that with the way it worked out.  It works very well.  It fits the space, and brings a lot more storage to the kitchen.  The construction was relatively easy, and yet it is quite attractive.  If anyone has questions or comments regarding this cupboard or the techniques used in its construction, please do so below.