Building a kitchen is an exercise in patience and planning.  Each cabinet has to be built individually and fitted to the cabinet or wall or appliance next to it.  But until all of the cabinets are done and all of the appliances arrive, you never really know what the finished product is going to look like.  This was the week all of that came together.

I started by building the last cabinet for the kitchen.  Unfortunately, I saved the toughest one for last – the cabinet to hold Tina’s double ovens.  I am glad I waited to start this one until we had the actual ovens here because the cabinet dimensions are actually quite a bit more flexible than the online documentation for it would lead you to believe.

Even so, just the size of this beast made it a challenge to build.  It is 32 inches wide, 26 inches deep and 94 inches tall.  The ovens weigh just shy of 400 pounds, so the cabinet also needs to be really strong as well.

Obviously, the dimensions of the sides and back are far too big for 2 people to manage cutting accurately on a tablesaw.  So I machined the whole thing by hand.

To start with, I needed to cut the side and back to width.  Unfortunately, the longest straight edge I have is 52 inches.  So I went to the local hardware store to buy an 8 foot piece of angle iron.  But the longest angle iron they had was 6 foot.  While talking with the proprietor and explaining what I was trying to do, he came up with a suggestion…  He loaned me (without charge) the store straight edge that went to a full 9 feet!

Score!

With this baby I was easily able to make the 3 accurate cuts with my circular saw that I needed to make on the sides and back.  (Note: I made sure to clean it up really well before I brought it back as well as lubricate it with a dry lubricant, which it desperately needed.)

Next up was cutting the dados for the top and 2 bottoms.

For that I just used a straight-cut router bit with a brass template guide in the router.  Then I was able to just clamp a couple of scrap pieces of plywood where I wanted the dado and route away.  I did a similar setup for the rabbit on the back.

I should have done the same thing when routing the dado for the top of the cabinet.  But I figured I could just use the edge guide for my router since the top dado was only 1 1/2 inches from the top.  I was about halfway through the first cut when the edge guide gave way and my dado curved down.  That is why the cabinet is 94 inches instead of 96 inches.

The glue-up was also not a whole lot of fun just due to the size.  So I took it in steps glueing a few pieces and letting them dry for a full hour before moving onto the next phase.

Because of the weight of the ovens, I decided to glue extra 3/4 inch pieces of plywood under the bottom that will hold the ovens.

The face frame was easy enough to build, but due to its size, it had to be glued up on the floor.

Finally, we were able to get the face frame glued on as well as the crown moulding.

In short, this was the biggest case piece I have ever built and I am no hurry to do it again.  But it turned out pretty good.

Tina cleaned up the saw marks that I missed in my initial sanding and got the first coat of varnish on it today.  Per usual, she is making my mediocre workmanship look outstanding.

The other major (and minor) accomplishments the week…

Tina got the center island for the kitchen finished.  It came out great.

Then, we got the top cabinets all hung and permanently mounted as well as got the base cabinets all set and sized with the appliances to make sure everything fits.  So far, everything is fitting perfectly!

(The color difference between the base cabinets and the top cabinets is due to my taking the photo late in the day.  The sunset is reflecting off the top cabinets and the bottoms are just ambient light.)

A major concern of mine was whether the cooktop would fit the cabinet I built for it.  I built the cabinet before we had the cooktop so I just used the specs from the website.  That was fine, but there were a couple of measurements that I had not noticed until after I had built the cabinet.  So we test fit it as best we could using a couple scraps of 3/4 inch plywood to simulate the countertop.

It will fit with plenty of room to spare.

Lastly, we got the pain-in-the-neck pocket door hung in the master closet.

This was the week that all of the work we have been doing for the last month finally came together and we could actually see what it is going to look like when we are done.  It seems fitting this should happen the weekend before Thanksgiving since that is the holiday we celebrate the hard work we have done in the past year and God’s gifts to us through those tribulations.

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to all of you!