Kitchen remodel progress

[Stwood_]

No room for a 36" rear door?

[Snipe Hunter]

No room for a 36" rear door?

Budget and lead time.

Wife wanted a full glass door with no mullions. Depot doesn't stock one and to order one it would be 30 days and $450, 84 Lumber stocks one at about $550, Lowes stocks only one which has the internal blinds and only stocks a 32 inch at $429.00. She liked the idea of the blinds, so did I.

I'll still have to put a roof over it. When the kitchen is done.

[R Clark]

Budget and lead time.

Wife wanted a full glass door with no mullions. Depot doesn't stock one and to order one it would be 30 days and $450, 84 Lumber stocks one at about $550, Lowes stocks only one which has the internal blinds and only stocks a 32 inch at $429.00. She liked the idea of the blinds, so did I.

I'll still have to put a roof over it. When the kitchen is done.

We put a set of exterior french doors with internal blinds into our last house.  We really liked the setup.  Even bought it from Lowe's.  

Your kitchen is looking great!

[jteneyck]

That's really looking good.  Very logical and practical layout.  You and your wife make a good team.  I noticed crown molding in the renderings but the cabinets look to close to the ceiling for it.  Changed your mind?  

John

[Snipe Hunter]

That's really looking good.  Very logical and practical layout.  You and your wife make a good team.  I noticed crown molding in the renderings but the cabinets look to close to the ceiling for it.  Changed your mind?  

John

Good eye.
There is a problem with the crown molding in the dwg. and the cabinets themselves. The stuff you see in the dwg is a program default which I didn't take the time to figure out how to change. But I also didn't realize how much the cabinet doors overlayed the face frames until I assembled the 1st one. There's really not enough exposed wood at the top of the cabinet to nail the crown.

So I'm still torn as to whether I'm going to drop the upper cabinets to make room for the crown or just put in 1/4 round at the top. I'm a little upset at myself for hanging them before thinking and I'm a little upset because the supplier's website doesn't really have detailed specs. Since they supply crown with this cabinet, I just assumed there was enough reveal at the top of the cabinet to nail it on. My own fault.

Since the uppers in the pic are the only ones installed yet, I'll probably drop them enough to make room for the crown. Still kicking myself about this. But, I kicked this to the wife's court. She likes the 19" between the uppers and lowers. It will be about 17" with the crown but imho, it will look better.

[jteneyck]

I had the same problem with some RTA cabinets I had to install crown molding on.  The doors overlay the cabinets too much to have enough room to nail on the crown molding.  Tom Silva just addressed the same situation on a recent episode of Ask This Old House, too.  The solution is to add a filler block on the top of the cabinet, glued and tacked in place.  You can make it any shape that's convenient and practical to giving you something to nail the crown molding to.  Silva used rabbeted pieces that fit over the top of the sides and flat on the top.  I made similar parts, but ripped a 45 degree angle along the exposed edge which made it easy to press the crown molding against.  

Coming to know how particular you are I'm sure this isn't going to sit well, and it won't be long before you lower the uppers so you can install the crown molding.  The uppers will be a little lower afterwards but adding the crown molding will take it from a nice, DIY job to a pro level one.    

John

[Stwood_]

I would also drop them and block up for crown. I can see in the pics that there isn't any room left with that amount of door overlay. Crown will make those look much better.

Dropping the cabs a few inches will make the uppers more accessible anyway. I always set the distance on upper and lowers 18", which has been fairly standard for lots of years.

[Snipe Hunter]

Thanks guys. I thought of that too. Shouldn't be too difficult.

[MstrCarpenter]

Just a few things I picked up on this thread. "Keep in mind, this is my wife's kitchen." and  "She likes the 19" between the uppers and lowers." Now I'm really not trying to challenge nor offend anyone here, but the old "standards" I still install to are 36" counter height and 84" top of 30" wall cabinets. I still recall the complaints of taking up all the space in the range cabinet for a 3-1/4 X 10 to 6" round adapter necessary to vent the range hood above the adjacent wall cabinets. (more on that in a second.) I wouldn't install wall cabinets with less than 18" under them.

 I've done a couple of kitchens recently that the crown wouldn't fit. My solution was to scribe 1" thick flat stock (to be on plane with the door fronts) with a matching 1/8 radius on the bottom to the ceiling. I don't think you'll like the look of qtr. round molding; flat stock doesn't really draw any attention, it just fills the dark space above the doors. Also, I know there are hundreds of "whites" but I've had good luck finding a match with auto body touch-up paint.

I hope you are venting the microwave to the exterior. Those carbon filters will take out some of the smoke and smell for a while, but they'll never take out any heat nor humidity. Good news is that when it gets replaced in 10 years, the vent will probably be in the same location so it's worth doing right. I suggest ducting straight out the back to a quality steel vent cap. Like the Model T "They're available in any color, so long as it's black." so again with the touch-up paint. With your 2X4 construction, you can bend the excess flat onto the sheetrock to make it air-tight to the interior as well. I use 3/4" X 3/4" closed cell foam weather-stripping to make a tight seal between the oven and the flanges I bent on the cap.

I think I noticed some bad news too. If you were tight on siding when you changed the window, it looks like you'll be short a little now. Maybe you could change to vertical siding under the new roof or steal some from somewhere else and replace that with vinyl. Possibly paint that area to match.

[Snipe Hunter]

I'm using a 3-1/4 x 10-1/4 rectangle duct out the back wall from the microwave. This size is made for microwave vents. Planned on moving studs but it just so happens that it worked out and there's room between studs.

Once the interior is all done, we'll reside the house and put on a new roof. Still not sure if we'll do an addition (we have a small living room and family room) but once that's decided, we'll reside so the siding isn't really an issue.

My crown is 1-7/8" high. I have about 1/4" reveal above the cabinet doors and 3/8" at the bottom. There's enough adjustment in the hinges where I can drop the doors flush with the bottom of the face frames. This will give me a 5/8" reveal at the top of the cabinets. The uppers are 42" tall and currently I have 19" between the counter top and the bottom of the uppers. I'll need to drop the cabinets about 1-1/4" to fit the crown giving me 17-3/4" between countertop and the uppers. I like the idea of the flat stock as opposed to the crown and leaving the cabinets where they sit. It's up to her.