Cabinets Part 2!

In a January flurry (literally and figuratively), Randy and I drove home without kids to make some major headway on the house project. In particular: kitchen cabinets!

 Here's the island being assembled at the shop. 
The island was our last cabinet to build for the kitchen.
And the biggest.
And therefore the heaviest.

And here it is getting sanded before going home. 

Before we brought everything home, we had to make drawer boxes. 
We got them all done in about a day with Alan's sweet machinery.
Here, Randy is using a machine that routers the ends of each drawer side for a solid, dovetail fit. We had already applied the groove in each piece, in which the drawer bottoms would fit.

Some have nubbins, some have spaces.

This nifty machine presses the box sides together. We had each drawer's labelled pieces in separate piles, and I would apply glue on the next pieces while Randy pressed a box together.

 Don't forget the drawer bottom though!

 A big pile o' drawer boxes.
Then it was time for sanding edges smooth, installing drawer slides, and giving each drawer a trial run.

Here's an upper cabinet. We also took the time to make shelves for any cabinet that would require them (which was most).

Another upper. (Remember, all our doors were already made, so I couldn't tell you anything about that process!) Some cabinets are hard maple, some cherry.

Waiting upside-down for stain and varnish, at home!
This particular cabinet was going to be 2-toned. Figuring out how to do that was a bit tricky.

I ended up using a utility knife and straight edge to put a tiny groove in the face frame of the cabinet, where I wanted the dark stain to STOP. I had to do the same thing to a bottom cabinet and it worked very well!

 The part that didn't get a dark stain was white-washed. All maple doors and drawer fronts were white washed, and all cherry were stained dark.
 (Then we painted the upstairs and installed flooring...)
and finally started installing cabinets!


They're looking kinda... naked.


I moved my finishing station upstairs (to the subfloor that would eventually have carpet) after cleaning and cleaning any devious dust. It was nice to be able to apply a coat and then work on something else in the house and come back and apply more.

Finally some doors going on! 

The kids helped me choose hardware...

My woodworking brother made these awesome "magic marble towel holders," fashioned after some that my grandpa had made years ago.

The cabinets I had to do two-toned turned out like this. I think they're great!


And here's what the kitchen looks like today! We still don't have a stove or dishwasher, but we'll get around to it.


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