Kitchen Remodel 10: Finished

As you know from the last update, we encountered some unexpected grief from the kitchen sink. Once we got all of that sorted out, my wife and I were able to turn our focus back to finishing the room. We’ve been very busy with work and family lately, so we haven’t had more than a day or two where we could devote our attention to the house. I managed to get a little carpentry done after work, including building these 18″ deep shelves for the pantry:

The pantry space is over three feet deep. We figured there was no reason to install such deep shelves, as we wouldn’t be able to reach anything in the back. And we couldn’t treat it like a walk-in pantry with shallow shelves, because the space is only two feet wide. My wife balked at the idea of putting in a false backing, since we’d essentially be throwing away good storage space in an otherwise small room. She recommended that we put shelves in the back for things we seldom use (specialty appliances and seasonal china), and build a movable pantry to maximize the volume of the space. This solution is actually closer to her original design, except that the pantry moves on wheels instead of on expensive, heavy-duty slide rails.

I bought some cabinet-grade birch plywood for the unit. The stuff costs $50 for each 4′ x 8′ sheet, but it’s worth it. Here’s a shot of the basic framework:

Here’s the finished product. The unit is about 16″ wide, 24″ deep and over 6′ tall. It’ll hold a lot more than you’d think:

At least I thought I was finished at this point. I built this on Friday a couple of weeks ago and left town the following Saturday. On the drive back home on Sunday, I realized that I hadn’t accounted for the cabinet door when I measured for the width of the opening. As a result, I had to take the whole thing apart, cut two inches off every shelf, and put it all back together. I didn’t really mind, as it gave me a chance to play with my new (to me) table saw.

This past weekend, my wife painted all the trim work and the pantry shelves. This shows just how much storage space we really have:

Here you can see how well the rolling pantry nests in the cabinet space:

Next, I went to work on the faux cabinet doors. Making the doors would have been easy if all I had to do was measure and cut the plywood, but it’s safe to say there’s not a single wall in our house that’s plumb. As a result, every angle had to be considered, and steps had to be taken to minimize the visual impact of gaps and panels that are asymmetrical. After a lot of measurements and re-cuts, I finally got the plywood hung:

I decided to use piano hinges. The doors are pretty heavy, and nothing distributes weight better than a floor-to-ceiling hinge. Plus, you won’t be able to see it after we paint, making the panels look less like giant doors and more like individual cabinets.

Next, the finish work began. We wanted the whole cabinet set-up to blend the modernity of our kitchen with the old charm of the rest of the house. To get that effect, we used bead board in our false cabinet doors. It’s a pain because you have to rout out a channel in all of the 1″ x 3″ trim pieces and make sure the beads run straight even though the cabinet doors aren’t exactly square. After many hours of work, I got it done:

Word to the wise: after years of working with bead board, I’ve learned that you must pre-prime (or pre-stain) the wood before you start building. The best way to do it is to slop on lots of primer with the thickest roller you have. That’ll get the paint into all the crevasses without taking all afternoon. If you wait to paint until after your piece is assembled, you’ll never get the color into the beading where the plywood meets the trim.

As a reminder, this is what my wife originally planned for the rear of the room:

Here’s how it turned out in the end:

Pretty close, right? We had to nix the idea of a sliding pantry with a false front, but I think it came out okay in the end. The rolling pantry and hidden shelves are very functional, and the white cabinets brightened up the room. It’s really good-looking when viewed from the dining room, where the custom kitchen cabinet area is framed by the built-in dining room cabinets:

It’s hard to believe that the our remodel is finally finished. Granted, we still have some little things to do in the room (build an island on wheels to rest beneath the matching pot rack, add shelves to the rear of the washer/dryer cabinet door to hold various sundries, and put a flat screen tv above the fridge), but that’s all cosmetic work. We started this project with the intent of taking the biggest drawback to our house’s value and making it the biggest selling feature. I think we accomplished that, and on a relatively small budget.

To compare and contrast, here are some Before & After pictures:

If you haven’t been following along throughout this series of posts, you can start at the beginning: Kitchen Remodel 1: The Plan

UPDATE: Kitchen Remodel 11: Really Finished

 

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