Renovation - Kitchen 15%

What started as an idea to take down my silver maple trees in my backyard has now somehow turned into renovating my kitchen... yea weird huh?!? I went to good ol' Lowes (home away from home) and got some quotes. The quote for the cabinets blew me away! I figure I have circular saw... why not try to build them myself. Circular saw, an essential tool... like duct tape. Anyway, so far it looks like the kitchen will cost me about 25-30% of what Lowes could do for me. Take a gander of what my kitchen looked like when I moved in. Sweet country goodness. Oh and by the way every wall in my house was that color... every wall! FYI. If you look closely on future projects through out the house you will notice that I have left the color in all the doorways.


Beautiful huh?

The existing cabinets were built in place and I tried to remove them in full. Poor construction and moisture from leaky plumbing caused most to meet Mr. Wrecking Bar. What I learned. Just hook the end of the bar around some cabinets and throw 185 pounds of mass in the opposite direction. Also work slow and avoid rusty nails... cause your tetanus shot may be up.


Surprise! I found out that the ceiling and bulkhead are made up of 1" of plaster and a metal lathe connects the two together. It is because of this that the two are inseparable. Touch the bulkhead wrong and the ceiling comes down with it. And with 14-16" of blown in insulation waiting overhead... well that doesn't sound like fun. Solution. Mr. Circular Saw. Of course with all that plaster shooting all over the place one must take certain precautions as to not get tagged in the head. Kids don't try this at home... I am a professional.


Well the bulkhead was no match in the long run though it did put up a descent fight. I continued on in cleaning the debris before getting to work in the woodshop/garage. And what an incredible mess I will soon make in that garage!

Later that day...
Here I celebrate moments after building and installing the first cabinet boxes. Ahhh the sweet refreshing taste of Powerade to replenish my hydrochlorides. Mmmm. It's grape too, so you know its good.


I am using baltic birch plywood for the construction of 90% of my cabinets. It is my first time using the stuff and am very excited about how everything will end up. And for $35 for an excellent quality 5'x5' board this will definately be much much cheaper than Lowes!

The cabinet building is taking place in my garage so not to stir up too much dust in my house. I then locate the studs in the kitchen... there's one drinking a Powerade... and secured 2x4's horizontaly to the wall. These boards complement the ones on the back of the cabinet boxes so that I can lift the cabinets up and rest them on the ledge and finish up with a wood screw through the back face, all by my self. The 2x4's take all the vertical weight. The screw just holds the cabinet on the 2x4 ledge. Well I repeated this step a few times and made some lower base cabinets to boot. Here the project will stand still for about 4 weeks while life distracts me elsewhere.