Kitchen and utility refit WIP

[Farmer Giles]

I finished the base this morning, or one of them, I have another run and an island unit to do after this.

Rivnuts are very useful, these are aluminium but you can get steel and stainless too.

They work just like a pop rivet, however instead of the disposable steel stalk, the screw thread on the tool is used to pull the back end of the rivnut against the material, here's a view inside the leg.

You have to be careful not to overdo or you end up stripping the thread out, just enough to stop the rivnut spinning. I always go round them with a tap afterwards to make sure there's no tight spots when you put the bolt in that could make the rivnut spin.

Here's the finished base, the rivnuts are quite high on the leg, no only because screw in feet could hit the rivnut, but the intention is to bolt the plinth on quite high up so the bolt is not visible unless you get very low down. The face frame will drop down about 20mm or so past the base of the cabinet which will also help.

Now back on the cabinets, once I have the drawer dividers in to support the face frame I'll finish them on the inside with a couple of coats of Bona Mega

Cheers
Andy

 

[Farmer Giles]

I've made a fair bit of progress. There was a bit of a design change, the missus wanted shelves in the plinth. So next job was to weld runners onto the frame.

Then make some drawers for the base.

Screw them to the runners

Then move onto installation. Here's half the old kitchen before ripping the lower half out.

The rip it out and start on the installation, first level the base

I made some bracket so the frame was bolted to the walls so the frame didn't move. Then add the cabinets, the old worktop will be used until we have finished the whole kitchen then we will replace all the tops.

The cabinets have 9mm ply packers between them the facilitate the face frame, so the rails are 2 x 18mm carcass plus 9mm packer so 45mm wide. I also packed out the ends to 45mm too. I have done more but the house is full of kids at the moment, so that will have to wait. The four base drawers don't line up with the five main cabinets, mainly because the base drawers were an afterthought, but I have dealt with that in the plinth, I'll show that later.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Farmer Giles]

So while the house is full of kids and its raining, back into the barn and make the wall cabinets. The kreg jig is worth the money for the shelf pin holes.

Four of the five wall cabinets assembled, the fifth has to negotiate a ceiling beam so I'll do that once the other four are up and I can measure the distance to the beam more accurately. They have had two coats of Bona Mega, just waiting for it to dry before adding the french cleat hangers.

Just finished lipping the front edge of the shelve in oak, one more coat of Bona Mega on the shelves and I'm ready to rip out the old cupboards.

And here's what this half of the kitchen will look like, approximately, it may change a little as we go along.

I've got all the drawer stock, all quarter sawn oak, I had a go on the Leigh jig last weekend and it went well so will start cutting this to size for the first 5 drawers.

Cheers
Andy

 

[thick_mike]

Great stuff. Thanks for documenting this. I’d really like to do my kitchen when I have the time, so I’m learning tons from the detail you have included.

 

[Farmer Giles]

I was contemplating whether I needed some parallel jaw clamps for making all the dovetailed drawers. The Axminster HD clamps are £45 each for 600mm, or I could go for the cheaper Axminster trade clamps for £23 each. I would need 4 per drawer so was going to forget it and make my existing clamps work.

But then two things happened, first i checked out Bessey UK, they have a sale on but still too much.

The I got a letter from the inland revenue, a rebate! Not huge but enough for some clamps, so bought four of their posh KRE100 clamps that came with some free Famag kit including a 125mm forstner bit extension which is about 30 quid which I have wanted for a while but thought was a bit steep.

If I only had five drawers to make then I would have forgot about it, but we have given up on baskets in cabinets, the wife wants wooden trays so effectively I need to make a bout 30 of them.

I managed to put the french cleat hangers onto the cabinets. I bought a couple of 2m length of steel french cleat to spread the load across the wall, far better than individual brackets especially if you get a bad fixing which is possible in an old stone house. The hangers are rated to 300kg per pair so should be good enough but I will probably put a small oak batten under the cabinets as I can use this to make sure the cabinets are vertical as the wall comes out at the top about 25mm.

Here's my first attempt on the Leigh jig, not glued yet, I still need to put a groove in for the bottom, this is for the daughters "secret" drawer on her bookcase.

Cheers
ANdy

 

[Farmer Giles]

I'm sat on the train, my weekly commute to the smoke, contemplating how to groove the drawers sides for the 6mm drawer bottoms without the groove showing on the drawers sides. I don't mind if the groove shows front or back as you can't see the back and I'm using through dovetails and separate drawer fronts, not half blind dovetails and integral drawers fronts.

I'm using the Hettich Quadro V6 undermount hinges, these need a 1/2" gap between the bottom of the drawer sides and the underneath of the drawer base. So I know the placement of the drawer bottoms, and its 6mm in depth.

Initially I thought I would need to stop the groove before reaching the end of the drawer sides or ends, which is certainly doable but time consuming and means I have to use the routing table.

So using the picture below, I think I have a method that although uses a router table, doesn't need the grooves to be stopped so I can mass produce the components far quicker and take the first pass on the saw table.

If the groove goes where the line is shown, but on the inside, i.e. where there is a tail, I won't be able to see it on the sides, just the front and back which I don't care about. This may seem obvious to some of you but I've never done this before

So I will pass the drawers sides over the table saw once to take out some meat and allow easier escape of waste, then pass it over the router table with a 1/4"/6.3mm router bit to finish it to size.

So next bit is to work out how to mass produce the cut-outs at the back of the drawer for the drawer sliders. Probably a template and the router table, the cutouts are like the following pic, interestingly half blind dovetails are used in this image from the internet. I will experiment with them later as only a few drawers have false fronts, most will be trays in cupboards so the front will be seen so maybe going HB dovetails for all is the way to go.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Farmer Giles]

I did a bit more at the weekend, I removed the old B&Q wall cabinets and put in the new ones. Again, all birch ply.

Then set to fettling the plinth drawers. As drawers in the plinth was an afterthought, there's 4 drawers and 5 cabinets so they did not align, so looked a bit weird. The solution was to have one front on two drawers and put a walnut pillar in the middle as a separator.

I think this looks ok, I have to remove the bit of oak skirting on the far right and replace it with another bit of walnut. The plinths are 18mm ply covered in walnut veneer.

I also added most of the support for the face frame and the LED lighting. I used slim profile aluminium strips with clear diffusers to contain the LED tape. Plain white under the wall cabinets, RGB under the base cabs so I can have any solid colour including white. I bought a controller with music input so it can be used as disco lights at a party. A bit cheesey but the kids forced my hand

I'm not keen on the wire baskets so they will get swapped out with oak dovetailed trays and sliders. The wire baskets will have a new home in the workshop.

Cheers
Andy

 

[sammy.se]

Looking nice Farmer Giles! Very neat.

I really like the look of birch plywood carcasses against hardwood / painted wood.

What brand LED lights and controller did you use, if you don't mind me asking.

The reason I ask is that there seems to be hundreds of varieties and I never know what's good and what isn't....

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[Farmer Giles]

Hi Sammy

I used https://www.wholesaleledlights.co.uk

For the wall cabs I used their lowest power daylight LEDs, a 3m roll of 4.8W per metre 4000K, 60 x 3528 LEDs per metre. Still plenty bright enough.

I put them in their slim aluminium profiles with clip in diffusers, nothing worse than lighting dangling down.

I don't intend to dim them so a standard 20w LED driver would have done it but I went for a 60W as I intend to run the plinth lights off the same driver.

I haven't got the plinth LEDs yet but I have bought 3m of their lowest power RGB tape, 30 x 5050 SMD, 7.2W, 165-510 Lumens. And to control them, their RF Music RGB Remote Controller.

So I can control the driver from the standard light switch for the wall cabs, and if I want to turn on the plinth lighting I will have a separate switch on the output of the driver to the RGB controller. At least that is the plan

Regards
Andy

 

[sammy.se]

Thanks Andy, for the detailed info!

 

[Farmer Giles]

I've added the face frame to the wall cabinets and started filling in the gaps in between

I needed somewhere to hide several power supplies, cabling and other gubbins so created a space on the end cabinet. This is the door to it.

and here it is fitted, its a pity I haven't got more wood so I can pick and choose the grain a bit more wisely, it is a bit random.

The slots are for phones, there is a charging lead inside each one. The black panel is a 7" touch screen with a raspberry pi mini-computer on the back paired with a small 20w amp driving a couple of Cambridge Audio speakers. I can stream Internet radio, and it will have Spotify on it soon. As it has a browser it can control the heating system, pull up a recipe etc.

Cheers
Andy

 

[sammy.se]

Loving that build in screen! Very modern

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[Farmer Giles]

Its been a while since I updated progress on the kitchen. With the carcasses one side of the kitchen fitted and face frame added I started on the other side. Here's a view with temporary worktops.

Its the same build methodology. First I welded a 25mm box frame up with adjustable feet, levelled it then dropped on the birch ply carcasses. I didn't need any pipework space behind cabinets except in one corner where the main water pipe from the borehold resides, and behind the dishwasher. I made the sink unit full depth and the pipes come in through the side of the cabinet and are clipped to the back of the unit.

Here's the corner unit , this is L shaped to avoid the bore hole pipes, its a funny size so no opportunity to make better use of the space with fancy pull outs, but the wife is happy with it. She can store those things you don't use often in the right hand part of the L shape so not too fussed about carousel's etc.

The wife and kids wanted a fold down worktop that is lower than usual, this is so the wife can kneed dough easily and the kids can cook without using steps. I found a couple of big stainless steel drop down hinges on ebay and was pleasantly surprised at how good they are.

 

[Farmer Giles]

Then on to oak face framing, the other side of the peninsular is done too, there are similar cabinets on the other side, 400 deep, except the far left on the far side where the cabinet is almost 850 deep, this was going to be where we kept the fold down occasional chairs but the wife has other ideas now.

Sorry if the image sizes are up and down, just bought a chromebook so getting used to the image tools.

And the first cupboard door, or rather a decor panel for the dishwasher, simple Domino at each corner and the usual floating panel. I covered this in my review of the Rutland panel clamps.

Then my first drawer for spices. This is my second drawer made on the Leigh dovetail jig, the first was for my daughters bedroom cabinet. I made some ramps from 9mm birch ply for the jars to sit on, the jars are about twice the capacity of your typical supermarket spice jar and you can get a teaspoon into them.

I have built one more cabinet for the left of the cooker but I don't have pictures on me. The worktop people came yesterday to template the top, we should have steel grey granite worktops in about a week. The fold down worktop will be a piece of 20mm grey quartz that they will supply, but I will fit, it will be screwed to a piece of 18mm ply. Quartz is reconstituted stone, so has a little more give in it than granite, and will be slightly lighter. If it cracks then I will get a bit of dark laminate worktop. It will be hidden behind a pair of doors so colour is not too important.

Once I have the worktops in place I will make all the plinths and start on more drawers, I need to order more oak for the doors.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Farmer Giles]

A lot has happened since the last update, I have built quite a few cupboard doors, and lots more drawers, most of them internal to the cabinets, completed a lower folding pastry worktop and all the granite worktops have been added.

The following cabinet goes all the way under the peninsula. So rather than access the corner space from near the sink using some kind of carousel, I just made the cabinet 800mm deep and accessed it from the other side so long bits can go in there.

The packers on the right are so that the drawer misses the inset door. You don't notice them when the doors on.

As you can see quite deep, drawer runners for these are 750mm Blum Tandem undermount, 50kg load. The drawers are 800mm deep to maximise space usage. The drawer runners stop 50mm short of the front so there is an additional spar underneath for the Blum clips to screw to. The rest of the drawers in the kitchen use Hettich Quadro v6 runners.

I have the last large drawer for the kitchen under clamps now, so far I've made 21 drawers, 5 will be with traditional fronts, the rest are internal to cabinets. The drawers with fronts have the front and rear clips to allow more adjustment. The internal only have simple front clips and a hole in the back of the drawer back to accept the runner.

I have another 12 small drawers to make for the kitchen, these will be half blind dovetailed. So before I set up the leigh jig for that, I will make 14 x 650mm deep drawers. I've made a prototype so I can be sure I get it right before knocking out all the components. The oak is all the same 100 x 10.5mm section so its easy to get a production line going. I have two routers, a big 1/2" DeWalt for the dovetails, and a Milwaukee 18v battery router for the pins. I love the Milwaukee, as there is extraction on the leigh jig it is completely unfettered, whizzes through the timber and stops immediately. With the DeWalt its still spinning by the time I have changed the timber and put a new backing packer in

After cutting the pins and dovetails I cut the slot for the 6mm birch ply base. I stop the groove in the dovetail so no slot shows once glued up

I then sand the ply base and the insides before dry assemble each drawer and do any tweaking before gluing up and clamping. I use some ply "combs" I knocked up on the bandsaw to put pressure on the pins and tails. So far they haven't stuck hard to the drawer, I usually leave them in clamps for about 2 to 3 hours, but sometimes overnight. I have two sets of 95mm depth parallel clamps so I can clamp up two drawers at a time, at a push I can assemble 6 drawers a day but that rarely happens with dads taxi, work and other commitments.

The dovetails are not perfect, I occasionally get a bit of break out, but I can usually hide that around the back of the drawer and use a smidgin of filler here and there. Plenty good enough for the kitchen though. All drawers are finished in satin Polyx oil. Two thin coats, if it was furniture I would rub them in very thinly but as they will get a bit of hammer in kitchen they are a bit thicker. I like the easy repair of oil over varnish.

Here's progress as of a couple of weeks ago, we have changed the door knobs since then. I'm working on the other side of the kitchen at the moment. After I apply finish and install the last 4 large kitchen drawers and cut the dovetails for the utility drawers I will be on kitchen doors, I have 14 more to make. Then I will tackle the 12 small HB dovetailed drawers then start the tiling and decorating. it must be completed by Christmas!

Cheers
Andy

 

[sammy.se]

Looks great Andy! Lots of hard work has clearly gone into that, and it looks very good indeed!

 

[Farmer Giles]

I've finished all the through dovetail drawers for the kitchen, I still need to make 14 more for the utility, all the same size so I can mass produce the components. I still need make 12 half blind small drawers for teas and other odds and sods though,

The packers to one side of the lower two drawers are because they will have an inset door covering them, and you need to make sure the drawer will pass the door.

A simple jig helped keep my swear word count down. It holds the top slider in position and level while I bang my head on the top of the cupboard.

Next job is to fill in the gap above the top drawers behind the top rail. If not I can guarantee as soon as I fit the drawer fronts the kids will jam something in the drawer.... I left this until the guys fitting the granite worktops had been in case they needed to fix through into the worktop.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Farmer Giles]

Next job is the utility larder cupboard drawers. I fitted the carcasses last year and they have been full of various junk while sorting out the kitchen, so not all the kitchen drawers are complete, the missus emptied the carcasses so I could set to. I sanded them down and gave them two coats of Bona Mega, then installed all the Blum sliders, they are all 650mm long 50kg rated.

These cupboards are not inset so no need to use packers, but there is a door frame on one side, and the larder fridge on the other. So 110 degree hinges will do, before I go much further I will mock up a couple of "doors" with some scrap ply and make sure everything fits. I have made one drawer so I can slide it out and make sure it misses the doors.

The wife wants full height doors, so I'll use 3 hinges per side, the doors are 50mm wide. The first hinge will be above the bottom drawer, the second just below the middle shelf and the final one just short of the top.

The wife wanted somewhere to put laundry baskets, she was using these carcasses as they are opposite the washer and dryer. So I have 3 shelves under clamps now, I've lipped some 18mm ply with oak, These will go into the adjacent cloakroom, just to the right of the carcasses. next job is to find the studs in the wall to attach battens to so I can mount the shelves.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Farmer Giles]

Time for an update I guess. I have added doors to the opposite side of the kitchen, I'll post pics later, at the moment its like a bomb hit it. My two daughters are doing a spot of cooking....

I bought the wife some decent kitchen knives for Christmas, she likes them but wanted me to get rid of the current knife block and magnetic knife rack and use a drawer instead. So I set to, first I found some interesting timber, its a bit of oak I had planked a few years ago, this was from almost the outside, the back of it is part bark and has knots and splits. I also has some off cuts of ply. The two cuts in the bottom bits of ply are intentional as the cleaver and another deep knife will live there.

This oak was glued with PU glue to fill some of the voids underneath. At this point I was going to fill the cracks and knots with resin, but I got a message that the delivery was delayed so the slots for the knives on the top shelf were cut, big mistake, I should have been more patient. Then a bit of quarter sawn oak left over from the kitchen glued on below it. You can see the slot on the right now lines up.

The slots for the lower shelf were now cut and another bit of oak added including a bit of burr oak I had knocking around.

I then filled the cracks with resin as it wasn't delayed, it arrived the next day - doh!. Suffice it to say that the slots for the knives didn't help

I ended up using masking tape and some packers to stop the resin filling the slots, it largely worked, but it would have been a lot easier if I was more patient. It was sanded to 400 grit and the photo below is after 1 coat of Osmo satin, it was still wet.

The cleaver goes on the far right, the little square of burr oak is for the handle to rest on. These are generic Chinese "Damascus" steel knives with a Japanese steel core. They exceeded my expectations for the money, and so far have taken a sliver at the end of the wife's finger off and the eldest daughter now has the utmost respect for the bread knife

And here it is in situ in the kitchen drawer, the kids haven't put the second from right knife away properly The four knives on the left are the wife and kids favourite knives, ones they feel most comfortable with. About 10 of the old knives are now retired to the barn anticipating the next BBQ.

As this was kind of designed while being built, I'm happy with it, but if I made one again I would do a few things differently. All the wood was offcuts so all it owes me is the resin, which was probably about £4 worth.

it was also a pleasant change from making drawers, I've just made 7 for the utility with 6 more in progress. That will leave me about 7 mor full size drawers and 12 "tea" drawers to make and I can retire the Leigh dovetail jig for a while.

Cheers
Andy