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.