First kitchen commission - advice needed.

[pren]

Hi all.

I've had my first request to make a kitchen from a real person! (ie: not a member of my family :lol: )

The client is after something like this in Oak. I don't know much about the project yet as regards number/type of units etc.. but I wanted to see if i was on the right track in terms of my methods.

I think I'll be following Brads advice and go for supplied carcasses (as opposed to self made ones). This does depend on how many units are required tho. The doors and drawerfronts will me made by me from oak and Oak veneered MDF.

I'm not sure how the client wants the carcasses to look yet, but is it possible to have them made from an Oak veneered board or is something like Oak 'effect' MFC an acceptable option? The finished kitchen is for a 300yr old Welsh farmhouse, so 'rustic and simple' are the keywords.

Can anyone suggest a manufacturer who will make up units to order?

For the doors and drawer fronts, I was going to use 19mm x 70mm Oak boards for the frames and 6mm Oak veneered MDF for the panels. There will be some Oak beading running around the panel. Do these dimensions sound appropriate?

I've never bought oak (or any 'proper' wood, for that matter) before. How should I go about working out how much I need? Are there standard lengths that boards come in so i can work out quantities and wasteage from there?

 

[MikeG.]

Best of luck with it Bryn! It doesn't look too difficult......no raised panels or anything too fancy. You'll be fine!! Personally, if it were for me I would go for thicker than ex 25mm.....I'd go for ex 32mm. It just looks and feels chunkier when you open the doors or drawers.....but of course, adds about 20 or 25% to your oak costs.

Surely some of your family are real people?

Mike

 

[pren]

Hi Mike.

Ok: first question of many regarding my first forays into the world of 'proper wood' buying:

ex 25mm.....I'd go for ex 32mm.

I take it that there are standard thicknesses for rough sawn timber? 'ex' being thickness before ..... thicknessing? I seem to remember 5mm being a general guide for the amount of waste from thicknessing? So from ex 32mm, I could achieve a stock thickness of 27 - 25mm depending on the quality of the timber?

I agree about the chunkiness. I think it'd go well with the 'farmhouse' style. This would mean I could use a 9mm veneered panel to add to the overall 'chunkification'.

 

[jasonB]

Whether the carcase finish is acceptable is really upto the client and their budget, some of the woodgrain MFC can look very good and gives a practical surface but does still have that "plastic" look. If you do go with veneered boards then I would suggest you look at the prefinished ones that the likes of Edens do, though if you are buying in readymade your supplier may be able to offer sprayed finishes.

I'd not go much over 22mm finished thickness for doors as it can start to give clearance issues if using concealed hinges, 9mm panel with the 22mm stuff. I tend to go with a mix of 22 for doors and 30 for draws. 70mm can be a bit uneconomic as its a bit tight to get two out of a 6" board or three from a 9" board.

Jason

 

[Doctor]

if you are doing it as lay on doors the concealed hinges only work for a maximum door thickness of 22mm.

 

[jasonB]

Yes the standard thicknesses are 25, 32, 38, 50, 63,75,100 al basically metric equivalents of their imperial origins.

I would allow for a loss of 6mm, having said that some of the boards comming in can be a bit over thickness.

Another option to explore is oak flooring, I can buy 22mm finish thickness oak flooring in 7, 9 & 11" widths for not much more than 32mm sawn and it saves all the prep work.

Jason

 

[Karl]

I'd think long and hard before you decide to make the doors. Brad has a supplier who supplies an identical door (I am pretty sure it's identical - if not, it is so similair as no matter).

If you can buy in the doors/drawer fronts then all you are left with doing is sorting end panels, trim etc.

Just food for thought.

Cheers

Karl

 

[jasonB]

I think thats a PWS/Second Nature door which you can get all over the place including end panels and trims.

Jason

 

[Aled Dafis]

Another option to explore is oak flooring, I can buy 22mm finish thickness oak flooring in 7, 9 & 11" widths for not much more than 32mm sawn and it saves all the prep work.

Jason

I made this from 20mm thick oak flooring. It actually worked out quite a bit cheaper than buying sawn timber, not to mention the hassle of machining it. If you do go down this route however, make sure that the flooring doesn't have "expansion grooves" machined into the back face.

Cheers

Aled

 

[pren]

Hi, thanks alot for all that great advice!

I'd never actually considered Oak flooring! If I can get that in the sizes I'm after then it'd be perfect! 8)

I'd be more than happy to have the units, doors and drawer fronts all bought in ready made. The client is after a 'made to measure' kitchen. TBH, I'm not sure if she's after a 'hand-made from scratch by a pipe-smoking artisan setup or bought-in fitted units trimmed in neatly. :?

It's all a bit wooly at the moment, based on a mate of mine giving her my name when she mentioned she wanted a new kitchen. I'm going to meet her in a couple of weeks so I'll know more then.

 

[pren]

A quick google turned up british hardwoods page for 20mm Oak flooring. Is £40.50 + VAT per sq/m good compared to PAR?

 

[BradNaylor]

I'd think long and hard before you decide to make the doors. Brad has a supplier who supplies an identical door (I am pretty sure it's identical - if not, it is so similair as no matter).

If you can buy in the doors/drawer fronts then all you are left with doing is sorting end panels, trim etc.

Just food for thought.

Cheers

Karl

This is exactly how I would approach it. I am now offering 'bespoke' kitchens using bought-in carcasses and doors. All I make are any odd sized doors that are required - usually no more than a couple per kitchen - and really nice end panels to match the doors rather than the boring ones normally supplied.

It is a far better use of one's time (and a lot more profitable) than making everything from scratch for what is basically a bog standard kitchen. If however, a client wants a framed kitchen with brass butts etc and is happy to pay for it, I'll do everything myself.

www.davenportkitchens.co.uk

If you need any advice and promise not to encroach on my 'patch' :lol: give me a call.

That particular door is available from stock in a huge range of sizes from an importer less than 2 miles from my workshop. The cost is less than what you would have to pay for the wood!


Cheers
Brad

 

[pren]

Morning Brad. I was hoping you'd stick your head around the corner of this one.

I think the concept of a 'bespoke kitchen' is one I've been struggling with. To me (and I think to the client as well) a bespoke kitchen means entirely made by hand, by the maker.

I'm assuming that there are standard sizes for kitchen cabinets. These dimensions have been arrived at to solve common storage solutions. If, say, the kitchen requires an 800 wide cabinet and I can either make one in a few hrs or spend a couple of minutes on the phone / email to order one then it's obvious which is the better use of my time. The client still ends up with an 800 wide cabinet.

I think I was seeing it as almost fraudulent for me to be offering a 'bespoke kitchen' when I would be buying in 90% of the parts ready made. Would you say, then, that the art of being a bespoke kitchen maker is in combining design skills, salesmanship, knowledge of suppliers and the ability to custom make parts and fit everything together?

 

[jlawrence]

A bespoke kitchen (to me) is one which is designed to fit the space available - an off the shelf kitchen is exactly that and you get no choice in what units come with it.
Being bespoke means that not all the cabinets may be 'standard' sizes - that's what gives it flexibility. IMO it doesn't mean made completely by hand.
A hand made kitchen on the other hand should be made completely by the maker. It may well still have 'standard' size components in it, but equally it may not.

 

[Jake]

This is exactly how I would approach it. I am now offering 'bespoke' kitchens using bought-in carcasses and doors. All I make are any odd sized doors that are required - usually no more than a couple per kitchen - and really nice end panels to match the doors rather than the boring ones normally supplied.

It is a far better use of one's time (and a lot more profitable) than making everything from scratch for what is basically a bog standard kitchen.

From another thread not so long ago:

Within a year or so I had invested the proceeds of a house sale in setting up a workshop 'just like Norm's'. After a few hiccups and setbacks I am now making good money living the New Yankee dream.

Without Norm, I would probably be working as a sleazy kitchen salesman.

Cheers Norm!

Has all the Norm worn off?

 

[Max Power]

\/ \/ well spotted jake. So whats it like being a sleazy kitchen salesman brad ?

 

[BradNaylor]

Slow day at the office, Jake?

Ultimately, the customer gets what the customer wants.

The number of customers who want a hand-made bespoke kitchen is tiny. 99% of customers don't give a toss how their kitchen is put together so long as it is what they want. I can offer them a much better service and product than that available from the average shed or kitchen studio and generally at a similar price.

It is important to be honest with customers - I never claim to have made anything that I haven't; but as I said before - nobody really cares. It is the product supplied that counts, not its provenence. I am sure that if Pren offered his client a choice between a bought in door at £50 and a hand made one at £90, they would opt for the bought-in. If they go for the hand made great - make them.

I love woodworking and I love making furniture. However, doing it for a living is bloody hard work - both physically and in terms of stress levels. As I enter my sixth decade this year I am looking at ways of making my professional life easier and more remunerative leaving me more time to do other things - like making beautiful pieces of furniture!!

\/ \/ well spotted jake. So whats it like being a sleazy kitchen salesman brad ?

Profitable.

:lol: :lol:

 

[Jake]

Ha ha, that took you twenty times as long as my post did. Good luck to you, I'm just tweaking your tail. You posted that on the Norm thread after your threads about Davenport etc, so it was just a matter of waiting, and you pitched that one high and wide!

 

[Max Power]

Yes brad being a salesman is not so bad is it . My advice to any tradesman
would be to learn to sell, if you can sell well then the world is your oyster, if you cant sell then every thing else is pretty much irrelevant you'll struggle to get work.

 

[pren]

Finally got a better idea of the job. The client wants an 'L' shaped run of high-line base units for the kitchen, 2800 x 4200 ish. In there will be a gap for a range. There will be a few wall units as well - not decided yet.

Turns out she is after the 'pipe-smoking, real-ale drinking, works-from-a-cruck framed barn' type of craftsman. Unfortunately she's got me. :lol: Fortunately she's happy to pay.

She said she'd seen an episode of DIY SOS where Bob (grumpy chippie) made a solid wood (Oak or pine?) kitchen from scratch on site. If I remember it rightly, he made the plinth first which was leveled, scribed and fixed in place on the floor. The 'carcass' sides/partitions/uprights were then fixed to this plinth/base. I'm pretty sure a face frame was then planted on the front with doors and drawers following.

Obviously modern carcasses are much more convenient to install and level but I actually quite like the idea of making something that is truly bespoke like this. I've yet to visit the site so I don't know how out of level and 'charming' the house is, but I'm assuming that as long as I can get the base and back supports level and plumb then it should be relatively straight forward ........


....... What? Why are you laughing?


:lol: :lol: