Kitchen Cabinets

My dad, brother, and I renovated a house in the summer of 2014. My job was to rebuild the kitchen cabinets that have been water-damaged and greased from decades of use.

The original cabinets had a hardwood face frame with plywood doors and case. The countertop was solid concrete with tiles. It was in decent shape, but not easily salvaged so it had to be demolished.

Quick crobar work.

I saved the wood face frame and doors since they seemed to be in good shape. My original idea was to strip the grease and varnish with paint remover and sand the wood clean. I wanted to reuse the original face frame and simply rebuild the case.

The new structure was built to the same dimensions as the original. The face frame was glued and tacked on.

I had intended to use wood stain onto the new cabinet plywood so that it matches hardwood frame. Unfortunately, the colors from the wood stain came out blotchy and overall unpleasant. I opted to painting the whole thing in white, which complements the new tiles nicely (I think).

I bought a “Butcher Block” countertop from IKEA. It is simply a large slab of particle board that is covered in a thin layer of solid birch. I used a jigsaw to cut out the opening for a sink. My dad did all the plumbing work. I think it looks pretty good overall.