fridge surround cabinet

[mr_skittle]

[font="Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]I'm building a fridge surround that calls for 100in sides. Obviously, that's longer than a sheet of plywood. My first idea is to join the extra length onto the bottoms of the panels with some biscuits but it's been so long since I did a fridge surround, I'm not too confident on the best way to go about it. Once I stop to overthink it I wonder: should the additional piece be as small as possible (4-5in) or is there any reason to make it like 12in? Is there a way to incorporate [/font][font="Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]the seam into the cabinet above the fridge to help conceal it? On one side the panel will be against a standard lower cabinet so the seam should be pretty much hidden, but the other side has a good 12+in exposed so I want to get the seam right. Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.[/font]

[jteneyck]

You might be able to get 4 x 10 or 5 x 10 ft plywood.  Problem solved if you can.  If you are forced to use 8 ft plywood trying to join it lengthwise w/o it showing is pretty much impossible.  I'd put the seam up high and add some decorative element to hide the seam.  I've added hardwood strips to the ends of the panels and chamfered them where the seam meets when I couldn't apply something over the seam.  

John

[MstrCarpenter]

Is the refrigerator end panel going to have a face frame or is it just a 3/4" think panel with edgebanding? I'm asking because I have addressed that problem by closing the gap at the bottom with 1/2" plywood on the inside of the "refrigerator cabinet", and treating it as I did other "toe spaces". In my case it wasn't because available stock was too short; I had to cut the cabinet sides short enough to stand the cabinet upright in the room without hitting the ceiling. (Most full height cabinets are shipped with removable bases for this reason.) On another install the ref. was just inside the back door. That one got an open end 3 shelf unit with a toe kick under the bottom shelf. The customer uses 2 for cookbooks but keeps the top shelf for cell phones and keys only.

[Cabinet Monkey]

The max height of your fridge is 84"

Which means your design has some sort of cabinet or face panel on top of your fridge.

Which means the exposed side panel should break on the bottom edge of that.

Which means standard sheet goods are long enough.


You're really asking a design question more than a construction question. Post your elevation drawing and we'll show you where to put the break.

[brianwelch]

I have edge-glued 1x when I need to get beyond 96"...A little extra work, but has been worth it (to me)...

[mr_skittle]

So what I decided to do is add the extra few inches at the bottom of the sides. On the side where it will be exposed for a 12in or so I'll just conceal it with a piece of baseboard that essentially matches with the toe-kick. I suppose I just join another piece of plywood with some biscuits. I'm just really relieved that I can easily cover the seam on one side and the other side will be against the rest of the cabinet run so it'll never be seen, unless you pull out the fridge.