Kitchen Build Thread
#41
(08-25-2021, 08:24 AM)mound Wrote: I know my renderings look to be full overlay doors and drawers, but what are the thoughts of this group as to pros/cons of full overlay vs. inset but in terms of design and execution?

We have inset doors (built by a professional cabinet shop, not me) and we really like the look.  The big "however" here though is that you see every dent and ding that you put into the face frames as you are loading and unloading the cabinets with your pans and dishes.  And those marks show even with the door closed.  With full overlay you will get the same dents and dings but they are covered up once you close the cabinet door.  Not trying to talk you out of it.  Just wanting you to decide with full awareness.
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#42
(08-30-2021, 04:35 PM)BrentDH Wrote: We have inset doors (built by a professional cabinet shop, not me) and we really like the look.  The big "however" here though is that you see every dent and ding that you put into the face frames as you are loading and unloading the cabinets with your pans and dishes.  And those marks show even with the door closed.  With full overlay you will get the same dents and dings but they are covered up once you close the cabinet door.  Not trying to talk you out of it.  Just wanting you to decide with full awareness.

Good point...
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#43
For this project, if it were you all, would you do integral toe-kicks or build standalone bases ("ladder frame box") for each of the 3 main cabinet sections (appliance wall, sink wall and island)

If it makes a difference, I'm thinking of working in some toe-kick drawers where they can fit well.

edit: Kinda leaning toward the ladder-frame so that the actual cabinet can extend on the open end faces just beyond the base, purely for the aesthetic.. I've checked the floors in the kitchen, there are no huge concerns about leveling things.
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#44
Well, the fun begins I suppose! This post will outline what's happened in the 6 months since I started the build thread.

Much has changed in the design since August. Several folks (LOML included) expressed concern about not enough room around the island, or too narrow island. Having spent some more time living with a mockup, it became clear that this wasn't going to work. I also still had to put the garage shop together, having just moved in.

You'll recall from the images in the top post, it was an L shaped space.. If only that corner could be removed! (Which LOML said from the start but I kept pushing back against)

Well, I hemmed and hawed and finally agreed it would be nice (the bathroom behind the corner will be reconfigured later.) Unfortunately, due to the design of the house, both of those corner walls are load bearing and so sometime in the next 6-8 weeks I have a crew coming in to cut out the walls and install a pair of large beams (an 18' beam comprising 4 @ 18" LVLs held up with two new 3" steel columns, and two 12' @ 9.25" LVLs perpendicular to the main beam, all so that in removing the corner walls we don't have to keep a vertical support column in the middle of the space. Fun times! More $$$ but in the end it'll be worth it I think.  I paid an architect to come do load calculations and spec out the structure.  I sourced the LVL's on my own and have them stacked under plastic in my back yard, as the contractor was adding ~$200 to the cost of each (!!!) over what I knew I could get them for. He was cool with that, means he doesn't have to go get them and bring them here.

   

Once we decided on that, it became clear that the OTHER wall between the kitchen and the dining room wasn't supporting any load and had no HVAC or water in it and so, "hey, let's pull that out too! wouldn't it be nice to have it all open".

So, my 2nd post in the thread outlined how I scanned the space and used a 3rd party freelance design service to come up with some renderings. I didn't want to go back and forth paying somebody for new renderings of the new space, so I took some time to learn "VRAY" which is an extension to Sketchup allowing the photo realistic rendering. I'm doing OK with the software, enough for my purposes, which was good enough now that the free trial period has run out!

All that being said, here are latest pix.. These renderings are my own from my own SketchUp plan, taking the essence of the original design, adding much more natural wood, and removing some of the "cool" design elements which we decided were more pretty than practical (like the open pot rack below the range)

SketchUp x-ray of all wood components for the carcass and drawer/door faces.
   

Various renderings I made (I still don't know how to do much with lighting other than "sun from outside" and don't have actual appliances rendered)
   
   
   

That last rendering is a view from standing in the back of the dining room looking out into the kitchen - which would be completely closed off with the wall in the way.  Also allows for a "peninsula" of sorts and a nice pass-through for plates or whatever between the kitchen and dining area, plus a bank of drawers on the dining room side will be nice.

This new design allows for more than 4' around all sides of the island, which can now be a full slab width (~55") meaning plenty of space behind the range to where somebody might be seated.  (The original design, the island was barely wider than the cooktop itself.)

That little breakfast nook/banquette/round table thing next to the wet bar is still TBD what exactly we'll do there.. If not the built in banquette, maybe just a small round table and 2 small chairs..

All base cabinet elements are either drawers, or dual pull-outs behind a door and all will be on soft-close undermount slides.  All pull-outs and drawers will be solid maple sides and 1/2" maple plywood bottoms and I plan to dovetail everything.  It's not shown, but the base cabinet to the right of the sink, under the built in paper towel holder/drawer, will be a pull out trash/recycle bin.

The "knee wall" area of the island with the slatted design, I intend to mount a series of oak slats to a piece of plywood which I'll probably stain dark, and cut that into 4 equal door faces, to hide 4 open cabinets on the back/seating side of the island.

As I mentioned, wall removal won't happen until late march, at which point I'll have to fill in ~60 square feet of the red oak flooring and then probably have to refinish the whole floor. As we wait for that, it's time to start the build. No demo has taken place yet, that will have to be carefully executed and planned so we can still live here.

First I had to build out the shop to a point it can start working.

I slowly sourced all the plywood, MDF, hardwood, veneers and most hardware I should need.  I found a local sawyer and got a really nice pile of 4/4 rift oak.. sold as 4/4 but it's all at least 1.25" thick.
   
   

There's some poplar in there for painted face frames and 5/4" maple to be re-sawn for drawer box sides. 

All boxes with visible faces will be 3/4" pre-finished maple plywood and some boxes will be 3/4" birch ply where no face is ever seen or it will be painted (like in the appliance wall)

All base cabinets will be faced with rift sawn white oak F&P doors and drawer fronts. The panels will be made of 1/4" MDF veneered on both sides with 1/16" rift-sawn white oak veneer bringing the panel thickness to 3/8". (sourcing rift white oak plywood, or hell even QS, was proving difficult and costly and I enjoy the process of veneering panels, especially with a nice 1/16" thick material).

The finish on the white oak will be Rubio Monocoat "Natural" finish which leaves the oak with a good protective finish but no ambering/orange color. The counters will be quartz

   

Given the "busyness" of the plain sawn oak floor, I wanted rift sawn for the simple clean lines, and as much as I love QSWO, that would be too busy in this context with all that ray fleck everywhere.

I've come up with a very detailed cut list to optimize parts layout (carcass only at this point), and will slice up and label all of the plywood components for the whole space before assembling anything (some parts left oversized until assembly).

This starts by ripping each sheet once or twice and carefully labeling and organizing things.  As I write this, here's where I'm at, all rip cuts done, cross cutting is next.
   
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#45
This is really going to take some serious organization! All boxes and parts labeled, mix of low-tech and high-tech
   
   

Made myself a rack to organize the parts for each sub-assembly (ie. box)
   

All the plywood and MDF parts are broken down, which was probably the "easiest" part in the grand scheme of things.. I optimized a cutlist based on ripping first then cross-cutting, did all the ripping of the sheet goods first on the tablesaw, then most of the cross-cutting with my tracksaw and a "crosscut table" I made (https://forums.woodnet.net/showthread.php?tid=7367570)

Now onto milling down a big stack of maple, re-sawing, stack and sticker, for drawer boxes (this pile is only a small fraction of what's to come)
   
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#46
I like your new design. Looks very functional.

I helped a friend once put in a beam when he took out a load bearing wall. It was...not fun. And oh so heavy.
Smile

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#47
(02-16-2022, 09:18 AM)msweig Wrote: I like your new design. Looks very functional.

I helped a friend once put in a beam when he took out a load bearing wall. It was...not fun.  And oh so heavy.
Smile

Thanks. Glad we put the brakes on things and took time to figure out what would be most functional, this is much better than the original design. 
I know where to draw the line on DIY, got an architect to spec the structural changes and will have a crew come in to take out the walls and put in the beams.
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#48
Awesome looking project.  I'm looking forward to your continued progress.  

How are you doing the renderings?  Directly in SketchUp, or?  They look great.  

John
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#49
(02-16-2022, 10:41 AM)jteneyck Wrote: Awesome looking project.  I'm looking forward to your continued progress.  

How are you doing the renderings?  Directly in SketchUp, or?  They look great.  

John

Thanks! I drew all the plans in SketchUp and then used a SketchUp extension called VRAY to do the renderings.. It's a pretty advanced package with all sorts of interesting capabilities for lighting and such - none of which I really played with, these were more so LOML could have a better picture of what was coming. I used the free 30 day trial of VRAY (https://www.chaos.com/vray/sketchup) which has now expired.  I may eventually buy it for use with other projects.
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#50
(02-16-2022, 10:51 AM)mound Wrote: Thanks! I drew all the plans in SketchUp and then used a SketchUp extension called VRAY to do the renderings.. It's a pretty advanced package with all sorts of interesting capabilities for lighting and such - none of which I really played with, these were more so LOML could have a better picture of what was coming. I used the free 30 day trial of VRAY (https://www.chaos.com/vray/sketchup) which has now expired.  I may eventually buy it for use with other projects.

Thanks very much for the info.  Much appreciated.  

John
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