# First Kitchen



## Aurora North (Oct 20, 2017)

First kitchen I have done since going it on my own. Learned a heck of a lot... Definitely got my butt kicked on it.

The doors are made of 1" thick hard maple with 1/2" ultralite MDF panels (paint grade). Due to the nature of the chamfer detail with no step to the shoulders, the cope detail went to a knife edge. So, every door was glued with rigid glue as opposed to titebond in order to negate any creep and joint raising. They were then put into a 5 x 10 top and bottom heated hydraulic press to kick the glue and press the joints dead flat. Each batch of doors took about 40 minutes or so and they were ready for the wide belt. Then the step detail was sanded off until the shoulder went straight into the chamfer detail. What a pain. 

Appliances are flush inset. The layout for the arch top fridge wall was rough. Especially not having the appliances on hand early on in the shop to work from. I found out the drawings from the manufacturer are unreliable when you're trying to maintain perfect reveals. Their customer service is entirely useless if you have any sort of technical questions in order to figure out precise layout. I was getting conflicting information from one service guy to the next about door clearances. There were also 3 drawings of the coffee maker and all 3 had different dimensions... Which one do you go with? Finally I told the home owner to order the damn things and send them to my shop. I had enough. 

The coffee maker, though in the same series with the speed convection oven, are different dimensions. And this layout needed to look symmetrical. To make matters worse, the doors above the speed oven (fancy microwave) on the right side of the sub zero are pocket doors for a kitchen TV cabinet where the other set above the coffee maker are not. And I wasn't about to make one side have larger reveals than the other. So that hurt my brain.

What else... The top of the fridge wall is all bent lamination. Had to build a reinforced form for that and to also make the arch crown. It isn't perfect, but it passed. That was a lot of work just by itself to make that arch plywood. Did that with wiggle, poplar veneer, and maple veneer for the interior face. 

There were a lot of little things I saw how I could have done it this way or that. Why I should use a certain way of building boxes as opposed to how I ended up going on this project. Tried out some new methods different to how I apprenticed. Found out I didn't care so much for those methods. That sort of stuff. All in all it was good and I'm glad it's behind me.

Reactions: Like 2 | EyeCandy! 5 | Agree 1 | Way Cool 18


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## Lou Currier (Oct 20, 2017)

Outstanding work...very elegant

Reactions: Agree 2 | Way Cool 1


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## woodman6415 (Oct 20, 2017)

Wow and double wow .... awesome job ... I owned and operated a custom cabinet shop for 30+ years before I semi retired... and in my opinion that's a great design and finish job ... the only and I mean only change I would have made would have been make the valance board over the window as an arch ... instead of straight across .... 
the refrigerator surround cabinet is one of the coolest I've seen ... 
Keep up the superb work ...

Reactions: Agree 2


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## Wildthings (Oct 20, 2017)

That is impressive. Any pictures of the refrigerator in the open position?


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## Nature Man (Oct 20, 2017)

Simply beautiful! Looks very functional, too. My wife would kill for a kitchen like that! Chuck


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## Mike1950 (Oct 20, 2017)

Very nice


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## gman2431 (Oct 20, 2017)

looks sharp! i love white kitchems, it gives it that "clean" look


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## CWS (Oct 20, 2017)

Very nice !!!


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## TimR (Oct 20, 2017)

outstanding! We still need to work out details for our kitchen, but I suspect it won't be that nice. Great design elements and of course, a killer execution.


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## barry richardson (Oct 20, 2017)

Wow, congrats on the fantastic work and the high-end commission! I see tons of work, and problem solving in that kitchen, well done! Hope the clients weren't too much of a pain........


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## NYWoodturner (Oct 20, 2017)

Extremely nice work. To add on to what Barry said about problem solving... The angled ceiling down to the top of the cabinets had to be a nightmare.....

Reactions: Agree 1


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## DKMD (Oct 20, 2017)

Gorgeous! Lots of little details and you nailed them all.


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## Aurora North (Oct 24, 2017)

Thank you everyone!



woodman6415 said:


> Wow and double wow .... awesome job ... I owned and operated a custom cabinet shop for 30+ years before I semi retired... and in my opinion that's a great design and finish job ... the only and I mean only change I would have made would have been make the valance board over the window as an arch ... instead of straight across ....
> the refrigerator surround cabinet is one of the coolest I've seen ...
> Keep up the superb work ...



I laughed out loud when I read this... IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE!... Sigh... In my original design that was an arch top with a keystone over the window, with an arched soffit panel, going into an arched window wall panel. LOL like I said... It's didn't go so well and I learned a lot. Cough.

I forgot to take into account how high that arch would be coming into the tapered ceiling when it got all the way back to the wall. So while the hood was spot on (had to bevel scribe 1/16" off the top of the keystone, I forgot to account for the set back of the upper cabinets. So basically if I had run the radius as I was supposed to, the back of the arched soffit would have been cutting through the ceiling. I wasn't about to cut out all the sheetrock to make it fit, so I talked to the homeowners who were thankfully/luckily okay with just a flat soffit and flat window panel. 

BONE HEAD. It was... embarrassing to say the least... 



Unfortunately I don't have photos of the fridge doors open. I guess I should have taken photos, but it was already crammed with stuff so I decided not to take photos of it.

the angled ceiling wasn't that bad. There were only two returns that had to be scribed to a really sharp angle, but I did that on the sliding miter saw.

The worst part of it was that I screwed up on what was supposed to be the arched valence. 

In hind sight I think I should have photographed the insides of the pantry and the blind corner cabinet. 

Each lower pantry has 3 dove tail roll out drawers. Every base cabinet and sink base also had roll out drawers. The blind corner cabinet has a Lemans II unit installed. The skinny upper cabinet and skinny base cabinet were pull out spice racks that I made. 

I think on the next one... I'll just make a standard opening and spec for stuff I can buy. Making all of these little things, even if they're simple, took time. And wearing as many hats as I do and had to on this job, I just don't have that kind of time. Time being money. 

Learning curve... That's all.

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 2


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## whitewaterjay (Oct 25, 2017)

Looks great!

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## West River WoodWorks (Nov 19, 2017)

Simply beautiful!
Tom

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Graybeard (Nov 22, 2017)

Can not show my wife. Outstanding.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Chris S. (Dec 9, 2017)

Outstanding work. If I can turn out a kitchen half of nice I would be happy.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Aurora North (Dec 29, 2017)

Thanks guys.

Haven't been on in awhile. Went back the other day to show samples for the office I'm going to be doing for the same client. Repeat work is always good!


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