Dad…….We want a new kitchen.

Hello All,

A year and a half ago, our daughter Lisa and her husband Mark purchased a 25 year old house here in Newmarket, Ontario.

The first time I walked into their new place and into the kitchen, I knew what was coming……. “Dad, we want a new kitchen”, was the cry that came from Lisa and for good reason.

The kitchen had seen its fair share of “renovations” by others that were………..let’s just leave it at that.

So, a year and a half after moving into the house, Lisa and Mark came to me with drawings, pictures, ideas and a long “want list” in hand and I started building the kitchen cabinets.

Click on thumbnail pictures to enlarge.

Below is Lisa discussing the kitchen rebuild with her mother Marianne.
My wife has lived through countless renovations and she’s telling Lisa what to expect.

This kitchen is old, tired and has its fair share of “issues”.

After we hammered out a cabinet plan, Mark didn’t waste any time stripping the upper cabinets off the wall and removing the drywall from the walls and ceiling for additional electrical lights, switches and receptacles, which the electrician roughed in.

So, while Mark was busy doing his thing, I ordered 18 sheets of 5/8″ melamine and set out to do my thing.

Some of the cabinets will have pull out drawers behind doors and some cabinets will have regular pull out drawers. All the drawers have full extension, soft close drawer slides.

With the base cabinets almost complete, I need to fabricate and install adjustable shelves into two cabinets and a fixed shelf into the corner cabinet.
More to follow including detail pictures of some of the interesting aspects of this kitchen reno……………..

Once that’s done, it’s on to the upper cabinets and then comes my favorite part, building the doors, drawer fronts and end panels.

All the best
Gord

One more of the melamine uppers to complete and then it’s on to the maple plywood uppers.

To say I’d rather be building doors, drawer fronts and end panels is an understatement right about now.

Click on thumbnail pictures to enlarge.

Now that all of the cabinets are finished, I can move onto the part of cabinet construction I really like………..the doors.

All of the doors, drawer fronts and cabinet end panels are going to be constructed out of hard maple and the place that I’ve got my lumber from for the past 15 years or so is Century Mill in Stouffville.

Century Mill has always exceeded my expectations for what a lumber supplier should be. They have quality products, knowledgeable and friendly staff and their products are always priced right. In all the years I’ve shopped there, I’ve never been disappointed with any of my purchases. If this sounds like a commercial for Century Mill, it’s not meant to be, I’m just one, on a long list of satisfied Century Mill customers. I guess being in business for 160 years, you learn a thing or two.

You owe it to yourself to head on up to Stouffville and take a look for yourself……………… tell Keith or Mark that Gord sent you…………….I just might get a free coffee out of it.

Seriously, you won’t be disappointed.

I know I’m easily distracted and here’s an example. While on my way to the hard maple lift, I spied this great looking ash that will fit perfectly into one of my next projects.

I’ve made a mental note of that ash and now to get what I came here for. Here it is, a lift of hard maple that’s been skipped-dressed to 15/16″ thick. Perfect for checking colour and grain. Each one of these boards was beautiful and I wish I could have taken the entire lift home with me.

I hauled away enough hard maple to keep me going for awhile and now it’s time to dress this lumber and cut it into door stiles and rails.

Did I say, this was the part of the job I like the best…………..

For the next few days, I’ll be making cabinet door, stiles and rails…………….I really like this stuff.

It’s been a while getting here but 38 of the 40 doors, drawer fronts and end panels are now completed. Here is a picture of the latest group of doors that I’ve completed along with the two columns that will stand on either side of the sink cabinet. Just two more doors to build and that will wrap up that phase of the project.

With the crown molding and light valance now installed, I guess you could say that we are almost there.

I’ve got only one more cabinet to build, a stand alone pantry unit and then its off to the finishing room.

The granite installer was in the other day building templates for the counter tops so it’s coming together quickly.

(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

Well here it is, the last cabinet (the stand alone pantry unit) is now finished…… okay, so it’s 97% finished.

This cabinet has a couple of interesting features including a spice rack that will hold a total of 70 spice jars, four pull out drawers, four adjustable shelves and upper and lower doors that are tied together.

The cabinet started out as any other cabinet would have except that this one is a little larger. The cabinet currently stands on a piece of melamine so the hard maple gables won’t get damaged on the concrete floor.

Pictured with the doors open exposing the spice racks that are almost complete.

I ordered the 1/4″ aluminum rod that will be cut to length and installed into the holes in the spice rack to carry the spice bottles. There will be four rods per shelf, two for the spice bottles to sit on, one for the back of the rack to hold the spice bottles away from the cabinet door and one more rod placed in front of the spice bottles to keep them from falling out. Granted a picture is worth a thousand words and when the racks are complete, I’ll post a picture.