How Long would it take you to Make new Kitchen cabinets?

[MrDavidRoberts]

My first plan was to change the countertops in our old kitchen and I bought a router to make new cabinet doors for everyting, however... the old kitchen is seriously seriously dated and very well past its best and I will be changing floors/backsplash there as well at the same time so more or less everything will go, except the old kitchen cabinets which I just wanted to upcycle at first with new doors/worktops.
The old kitchen cabinets are super old crap mdf very cheap units, Once I change the doors/worktops from outside it should look a whole lot better, but once you will open them they will still be the same probably 40year old crap mdf units So I'm a bit confused now, should I go all out and make completely new cabinets myself in more up-to-date style or upcycle the old crappy units with new doors/worktops?

I have never made any kitchen cabinets myself in past, however have made lots of other stuff, tables/chairs/benches/shelvings and all kinds of other stuff so got the skill/tools to do it and from the few plans I have seen it doesn't looks that complicated- just time consuming, however not really sure about how much time this would take to complete exactly?

Here are few pics of what I want to make -
basically 2 large about 3metre long each base units and 1 set of hanging wall cabinets about 2m in length in total.
everything would be made out of already planed pine boards I will get from local place+ plywood (so would just need to cut everything to length/size and fasten together+do a paint job)

If you would attempt to make something like this how much time do you reckon it would take you from start to finish?
Since I have never made cabinets before, it will probably take me 2x longer but that's ok

 

[dzj]

"already planed pine boards I will get from local place"

This might be a problem. Stock for doors and frames should be carefully selected.
Running any old board through a planer will not give good results.
I would always do milling of this kind by myself.

Without a properly equipped WW shop, I would stay away from such a job.
Perhaps make cabinet carcasses by yourself and have a shop make doors and drawer fronts for you.

 

[Mr T]

It depends what gear you have. If you have a saw table or track saw plus a good biscuit jointer it shouldn't be too long a job to make the carcases. I would suggest birch ply for the cabinets. Actually I think making the doors is a more difficult job than the cabinets, assuming the right tackle.

Chris

 

[munkypuzel]

I am in the later stages of this for the first time, I only have weekends/evenings but do have a decent workshop that I have gradually built up.
Its a medium/largish kitchen at 4m x 4m with an island.
Carcasses - Plywood, made amazing progress, cut joined, lacquered finished in around 3 to 4 working days- Great, had a lot to show for few days work.

Face frames - this surprised me- making these has taken longer than the carcasses - if you make a face frame kitchen, it seems to double the time it takes to make compared to a door that 'overlays'.

Doors - Reasonably quick to make - 5 piece shaker doors- again after preparing timber (1- 2 days) and the grooving, assembling, gluing, clamping - i haven't kept track, but a good few days. Its amazing how much time
disappears during sanding/block plane/dry fit etc etc processes.
Then - having made the doors - and again, I underestimated this - Cleaning up, sanding, initial trimming to size. Then final fitting to frames (shooting in?) fitting but hinges etc. I Have lost count of the man hours involved in achieving a good quality job!

Fitting - do not underestimate the time taken to fit a kitchen properly - I probably spend a good week on this. Think not just about cabinets, but cornice, pelmets, plinths, end panels, scribing etc.
Painting - 4 coats? rubbing down in between, removing refitting doors/drawer fronts.- I haven't finished painting - but there are many days work in this.

The list of 'small jobs' still to do just grows and grows and i am simply amazed how much longer this has taken than I though!

My guesstimate if I had a straight run at this job from start to finish including painting - maybe 5 weeks non stop. I am currently at the 4 months stage!

Don't be put off if you want to do this, your sense of self satisfaction will be great for many years to come, just accept it will take time. My wife thought it would take a couple of weeks!!

 

[tomatwark]

It also depends on your budget.

Birch Ply is expensive, then veneered MDF and then MFC.

Birch Ply of Veneered MDF will need a finish put on it which is going to take the hard wear and tear a kitchen unit gets.

MFC is more practical for kitchen unit and is easily to keep clean, if you go for a good quality one such as EGGER or Kronospan you won't go far wrong.

As for cutting there a lots of places that will cut and edge sheet materials for you.

For the doors I would avoid buy PSE pine from a local merchant as the chances are it will not be totally square and straight and will be a pain to work with, and also it may not be that dry and you finished door will warp.

If you have not got a planer I would see if you can find someone local to plane up some hardwood for you such as beech or poplar (tulipwood)

One thing I would say that if your cabinets are getting to that sort of age you will probably find that once you start taking things apart, they are in a lot worse state than you realised.

 

[bugbear]

A friend, a full time carpenter/joiner, with a large well equipped workshop made and fitted his own kitchen.

He BOUGHT the carcases, and made the door/drawer fronts.

The carcases were cheaper than he could buy the materials.

Large factories are awesome.

BugBear

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

"already planed pine boards I will get from local place"

This might be a problem. Stock for doors and frames should be carefully selected.
Running any old board through a planer will not give good results.
I would always do milling of this kind by myself.

Without a properly equipped WW shop, I would stay away from such a job.
Perhaps make cabinet carcasses by yourself and have a shop make doors and drawer fronts for you.

My local place is really great, they make furniture themselves and always have freshly planed/properly dried&stored timber and I can choose/pick out what I need.
heh I thought that making the carcasses is the tough/long part? Doesn't really seems that it would take that long to make shaker style doors.

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

It depends what gear you have. If you have a saw table or track saw plus a good biscuit jointer it shouldn't be too long a job to make the carcases. I would suggest birch ply for the cabinets. Actually I think making the doors is a more difficult job than the cabinets, assuming the right tackle.

Chris

I do not have a tablesaw , no space for one
however I got circular saw with self-made guide for cutting sheet material & I do not have biscuit jointer but I got brad nailer, that should be enough?

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

It also depends on your budget.

Birch Ply is expensive, then veneered MDF and then MFC.

Birch Ply of Veneered MDF will need a finish put on it which is going to take the hard wear and tear a kitchen unit gets.

MFC is more practical for kitchen unit and is easily to keep clean, if you go for a good quality one such as EGGER or Kronospan you won't go far wrong.

As for cutting there a lots of places that will cut and edge sheet materials for you.

For the doors I would avoid buy PSE pine from a local merchant as the chances are it will not be totally square and straight and will be a pain to work with, and also it may not be that dry and you finished door will warp.

If you have not got a planer I would see if you can find someone local to plane up some hardwood for you such as beech or poplar (tulipwood)

One thing I would say that if your cabinets are getting to that sort of age you will probably find that once you start taking things apart, they are in a lot worse state than you realised.

Thanks, Yes Birch Ply does seem really expensive, what is the real benefit between birch & regular plywood? I know it looks much nicer in unfinished form,but any other benefits?
Infact I got few regular plywood sheets already which I have left over from previous job so I was thinking about using those as I already would have enough.
I'm not really sure If I want to make it out of MDF/MFC as my wife thinks it looks cheap and fake, so Do I actually.

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

I am in the later stages of this for the first time, I only have weekends/evenings but do have a decent workshop that I have gradually built up.
Its a medium/largish kitchen at 4m x 4m with an island.
Carcasses - Plywood, made amazing progress, cut joined, lacquered finished in around 3 to 4 working days- Great, had a lot to show for few days work.

Face frames - this surprised me- making these has taken longer than the carcasses - if you make a face frame kitchen, it seems to double the time it takes to make compared to a door that 'overlays'.

Doors - Reasonably quick to make - 5 piece shaker doors- again after preparing timber (1- 2 days) and the grooving, assembling, gluing, clamping - i haven't kept track, but a good few days. Its amazing how much time
disappears during sanding/block plane/dry fit etc etc processes.
Then - having made the doors - and again, I underestimated this - Cleaning up, sanding, initial trimming to size. Then final fitting to frames (shooting in?) fitting but hinges etc. I Have lost count of the man hours involved in achieving a good quality job!

Fitting - do not underestimate the time taken to fit a kitchen properly - I probably spend a good week on this. Think not just about cabinets, but cornice, pelmets, plinths, end panels, scribing etc.
Painting - 4 coats? rubbing down in between, removing refitting doors/drawer fronts.- I haven't finished painting - but there are many days work in this.

The list of 'small jobs' still to do just grows and grows and i am simply amazed how much longer this has taken than I though!

My guesstimate if I had a straight run at this job from start to finish including painting - maybe 5 weeks non stop. I am currently at the 4 months stage!

Don't be put off if you want to do this, your sense of self satisfaction will be great for many years to come, just accept it will take time. My wife thought it would take a couple of weeks!!

Thank you Sir, This is what I wanted to hear
I have found it always the hard way when planing how much it will take me, it always ends up taking 2.5-3x longer than planed
I think the part where you put everything together takes the less time, the most of the time is taken up by the small things that you thought will take just a few minutes.

I Actually want to make the cabinets myself just to see If I can do this and take my woodworking skills to next level as Haven't attempted any project of this size before.

 

[RobinBHM]

If you want to make the carcases out of pine, I would use pine board, there are ebay sellers that will deliver. My choice though would be 18mm melaimine faced chipboard, it comes all ready finished and is easy to keep clean. Dont think of it as a cheap mass produced option, there are some stunning wood grain finishes available now. You could go to one of these companies that will cut to your list and even drill out the shelf pin holes for you. Its probably dearer than buying cheap carcases but you can build exactly the size you want and the melamine face will last many years longer than paint or lacquer which will quickly get scratched. I must admit though birch ply is nice to work with.

If you build the carcases in birch ply or pine, you will find the finishing will take longer than the assembly.

Kitchen carcases I just screw together with confirmat screws and use the special stepped drill.

From memory kitchen base units are 720mm high, add 150 for plinth and 40 for worktop.

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

I think I have made up my mind thanks to munkypuzel ,
I have a full-time job so can only spend on this spare weekends/mornings and I don't want to be left without a kitchen for the next 4 months


Decided to leave most of the cabinets intact except I'm going to botch up one part completetly and re-make it so I can fit-in a belfast sink and slightly extend one another cabinet.
For the rest of the units Will just make new doors and maybe replace few trim bits, and paint everything with one of those fancy F&B paints (I think that company is complete rip-off, however they got some nice shades which you can see how they will look like so can skip the guess work)
+new worktops and new doors which will have to make.
Should be rather cheap/easy and way way way faster than making everything from 0.


One question however, has anyone have one of those belfast sinks? Kinda really like the look of them, but just wondering how durable are they when you bang some pans/pots against them?
want to steal/replicate these designs

 

[owen]

If I was pushed for time I would buy the units. I would definitely replace them now if I was you, otherwise once you've finished replacing everything else you're going to regret it. Just buy them from b and q and slap them together, it'll only take you a day and cost a few bob but it's worth it.

 

[Roughcut]

I think I have made up my mind thanks to munkypuzel ,
Decided to leave most of the cabinets intact except I'm going to botch up one part completetly and re-make it so I can fit-in a belfast sink and slightly extend one another cabinet.
For the rest of the units Will just make new doors and maybe replace few trim bits, and paint everything with one of those fancy F&B paints (I think that company is complete rip-off, however they got some nice shades which you can see how they will look like so can skip the guess work)
+new worktops and new doors which will have to make.
Should be rather cheap/easy and way way way faster than making everything from 0.


If you don't want to pay the F&B prices for paint then you might want to consider a visit to a Johnstone's Decorating Centre if there's one in your local area.
They can mix their paints to F&B colours for you and it's cheaper.

 

[Sawdust=manglitter]

I'll be keeping an eye on this post, as in a year or so I plan to make my own kitchen! But I was wondering if anyone's ever bought pre-made birch ply carcasses before? If so, could you point out where from. I'm assuming it would cost quite a bit more than the cheap melamine chipboard carcasses you can get, but would be interested in seeing how much more it would cost?

 

[bernienufc]

Avoid the belfast sink if it is going to take any knocks to the level you suggest, metal pans mark the enamel in no time and if you drop anything (remember wet stuff slips) it can crack or chip.
That said if you get a good size plastic bowl inside it to work in you can be ok with a bit of care, in which case they are worth it.

Malc

 

[mbartlett99]

I've just finished pricing up my new kitchen build - I've done a 1/4 of it already so have an indication of how long it'll take.

The maths worked out something llike this for the carcasses;
£400 for Egger MFC in cherry
£500 for VMDF + 2mm edgebanding by the 100m roll
£900 for same cut and edged by Cutwrights
£1200 for cheapest Ikea carcasses
£3000 for decent quality carcasses in cherry MFC

VMDF will take a lot of time to finish and probably another £200 in finishing materials.

This is for;
4 x 600mm base units
3 x 600mm wall units
1 x 1200 corner unit
2 x appliance housings
1 x 300mm base unit

All seems quite cheap until I factor in the drawer hardware which nearly made me ill. Either way I slice it I reckon the carcasses will represent only 15-20% of the overall cost.

Just include this as the ratios should hold true for anybody else in the future.

 

[mbartlett99]

Incidentally, I should have mentioned that the Cutwrights site is an excellent way of developing a cutting list complete with most economic use of the board.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Couple of points raised yet to be answered in this thread:

The difference between Birch ply and the regular cheaper alternative from the sheds is the number of veneers is greater in birch ie it's better quality with more layers and there are no voids. It's a more stable/durable material all round.

I have a friend who runs a professional decorators merchants therefore has enormous experience with F&B. His take on the winning paints for professional use is that Sikkens is No1, especially for oil based, outdoor use because of it's longevity and UV resistance. He does rate F&B but believes they're slightly over priced and for interior wall use he highly rates Dulux Diamond matt because its durable and washable. His clients, especially the designer types, seem to rate F&B the most.

 

[mbartlett99]

Sikkens definitely do a great exterior product - used their Cetol on the workshop and it seems to be bombproof.

Like the F &B but boy it doesn't half change colour depending on the light.