My kitchen corner from hell

Well, Christmas is over and all surprises went off without a hitch.  Now I find myself in slow season for my business, and no homework to occupy me.  So I was back to working on the house again today.  The other day I cut a hole in a cabinet to give me better access and usable space.  Today I was finishing up the revamp of the corner of the kitchen.  The corners of kitchen are notorious for wasted space.  You either end up with a crappy lazy susan or a blind corner where appliances and other items go to hibernate and you forget they exist until it's time to move and you have to dig them out.  My kitchen had one of the worst corner designs I've seen.  I'm guessing that the original kitchen was designed with one of those counter-depth refrigerators.  This had since been replaced with a regular fridge, but the lower cabinet set too far back to be able to open the door to truly access the broken lazy susan that lay in there.  When the door was open you literally had 4 inches of width to get things in and out.  For the upper cabinets we had to standard 12-inch deep cabinets that met in the corner, creating a blind corner.  The problem with these is that the cabinet sitting over the fridge was too far back to access it without climbing on a chair and there was no space to store any of those big platters you bring out for entertaining. 

Okay, so my master plan was this.  I would pull out the old lower corner cabinets the one next to the fridge with one I built that was 28 inches deep instead of 24 - which brought it just shy of being flush with the frame of the fridge.  The huge cabinet in the corner was now a blind corner, but I have plans to install sliding shelves in there for better access.  Here is a picture of what I had to work with...

For the upper cabinets I wanted a cabinet above the fridge that extended further forward.  We were tossing things like bread and chips up there, so even if all I do is start storing those in the cabinet, it will at least clean up the space some.  The corner is a bit trickier.  I chose to keep it just as deep as the cabinet above the fridge which made for a massive cabinet.  But the cabinet that goes next to the opening in the wall needed to be a particular size so it would match a similar cabinet on the other side of the cutout.  This meant that I didn't end up with a rectangular corner cabinet, but instead there is a small lip that turns that 90-degree angle.  It looks a little odd right now, but I'm confident I can make it look useful.  So for the cabinets above the fridge and in the corner I had to build those from scratch.  Went to Home Depot, grabbed a 4x8' sheet of 3/4" hardwood plywood and had them cut it up a bit for me.  If you've never tried to maneuver one of these on your table saw, trust me it's not worth that hassle.  And I find myself flying solo right now while my husband is overseas, which would have made it near impossible for me to do it.  So had the plywood chopped up some, and then perfected the dimensions when I got it home.  Cut some grooves for the lower shelves.  The cabinet hangs on the wall to the left of the opening was taken off the wall, cut down to size with my circular saw and then nailed/screwed back together.  I highly recommend repurposing cabinets if at all possible.  Cuts down on the amount of waste and really no need to reinvent the wheel completely if you don't have to.

 

So what do I have now?  Yup, a big mess.  The cabinets are up, although as I type this I'm waiting for my drill's battery to recharge so I can put a final screw in one of them.  As I look at the pictures I'm tempted to add some sort of corkboard to the inside of one of the cabinets so I can get rid of the fridge clutter too.  Just need to finish them with trim, paint and doors.  And naturally now comes the fun part of trying to figure out which premade cabinet organizers will make the best use of this new space.  Suggestions if you were going to do this in your kitchen?  Protect your countertops if you're taking down upper cabinets.  I don't have a countertop right now, so that wasn't a problem for me.  Ask for some help.  I'm super stubborn, so when it came to putting that corner cabinet up I was sweating and panting.  Those are hard enough to put in with one person holding it and the other screwing it in, so I'm not sure how I managed to do both those jobs.  But really glad it's done.  Finally, it's not going to look like perfection until the trim is on, so don't be too hard on yourself if it doesn't look exactly as you envision it when it first goes up.

 

And now, I have a massive pile of sawdust to clean up.  Very glad to have the grunt work done on this job so now I can work on the finishing touches because that's when you really get to see your vision taking shape.    



Home improvement has..

...overtaken my life.  Not because it has to, but because I just love it.  Has it been a while since I blogged?  Yup.  Do I have a good excuse?  I guess not, I mean really how long does it take to write down my thoughts??  I suppose the real reason for my leave of absence was lack of anything of substance to say, plus constant other demands for my time. 

So I was thinking, today, as I cut a big hole in the side of a kitchen cabinet that perhaps I should write about what I've been doing to the house we bought in February because it consumes a lot of my time, and maybe there are others out there who want to change things in their own home but just don't know how to approach it.  So my plan is this:  I will start by writing some about my current projects, and then I may jump around and talk about some of my previous projects.  I get a lot of my nerve, regarding construction, from my Dad who involved us in building from an early age.  I'm trying to follow in his footsteps by letting my boys help whenever I can think of something that needs to be nailed or screwed together.  I must say he had the patience of a Saint, me not so much.

My current project is the kitchen.  We went to the local big box home improvement store and had some plans put together for a Kraftmaid kitchen cabinet set.  Naturally I wanted all the bells and whistles that Kraftmaid offered with a special appliance lift cabinet for my mixer, pull out pantry cabinets, etc.  We only managed to put together some base cabinets but had gotten up to an almost $7000 price tag.  Trying to afford that was insanity.  In the interest of being thrifty I decided I would attempt to repurpose some existing cabinets, build a few new ones when necessary, and order new cabinet doors and drawer fronts to update the space.  The nice part about doing the kitchen this way is that I can work at my own pace and tackle one cabinet at a time.  I unscrew a cabinet from the wall and floor, chop it the way I need it, move it into a new place.  Screw it into place, fill the nails holes, sand it and paint it.

Today's project was to chop a hole in the side our sink base cabinet.  Most sink base cabinets are rectangular.  Our's, however, appeared to be a built to line up well with our island shape.  Great for look, extremely poor for function as we now had this triangular area of open cabinet space that was unusable.  For this project, I just needed my tape measure, a pencil, a level, a circular saw, a jig saw and a sander.  I suppose you could do it without the circular saw, but it does make it easier to make a straight/square cut as compared to the jig saw where the blade is a little flexible/bendy which can give a wiggly cut.  I measured the sink base cabinet face frame to see how far from the top and bottom to make the horizontal cuts as well as the verticle cuts, and drew lines for these using the level.  Zip zip with the circular saw to cut most of the lines except for the corners, and then used the jig saw finish the cuts in the corners.  Sanded it until smooth, and voila. 

Does it look pretty?  Nope.  I mean the cut is nice and straight, but I now get to clean up a lot of sawdust, you have a nice view of my trashbags under the sink, and the boys now have yet another cabinet missing a door that they think is a play area.  But we're headed in the right direction.  Next up for this puppy?  I'm going to order a hinge.  I prefer the Blum 1 1/2" overlay hinges (full overlay) - which I've found online (couldn't find them at the hardware store or big box home improvement store) at www.barkerdoor.com.  I like these because when installed, the cabinet door will cover the majority of the cabinet face frame.  I think this looks "high end".  Some people like to have smaller doors and more of the cabinet frame showing, so it's your preference, but I think that style looks kind of cheap.  So I'll order 2 hinges, and also the blum soft close attachments.  I installed some of those on another cabinet and it is impossible to slam that cabinet closed now which is great if you have energetic little people living with you.  Finally I will need to measure and order a door for this cabinet.  I found www.rawdoors.net has great pricing and the doors and drawer fronts are beautiful, heavy/sturdy, and they will drill for your hinges (bonus!!).  I could build the cabinet doors myself, but they would never be as nice as these, plus I did a cost estimate and it would be about the same for me to buy the supplies as it is to just order the door.  I'm estimating that the cabinet door will run about $70 with the shipping.  The hinges I can get a pair for $8 and a soft close attachment is $6 plus shipping.  All put together for less than $90 I have gained 2 extra square feet of cabinet space and a pile of sawdust to sweep up.  Perfect for storing things like our bag of dog food and all his accessories.  Or you could skip the cabinet door and put some shelves in there for your cookbooks.