Steph Says I Should Title My Posts

As I'm nearing the end of the veneering process, I thought I'd share a bit of detail. The total cost for the 7 sheets of veneer was just over a thousand bucks. That's not the detail I wanted to share. The point is, I decided early not to reface the back sides of the drawer fronts and doors as that would have nearly doubled the cost, not to mention adding labor and extra weight. I wasn't sure how this approach would turn out, but it's working out well so far.

Back side of an IKEA drawer front after refacing with veneer

I had to use care when trimming the veneer, but I managed to keep the Nexus Black-Brown finish intact. It actually looks pretty cool.

BTW, all the veneer and special tools came from VeneerSupplies.com. Joe is awesome and his site is full of woody good wisdom. I knew absolutely nothing about veneer before this project, and his site and a few others have provided a priceless education.

So, I'm down to only three panels left to veneer. Two are small pieces that will need to be custom cut to fill spaces above the built-in oven and microwave, so I won't veneer them until after the cabinets and appliances are installed and the exact dimensions are known. The third panel is a large custom end panel for the island, and I haven't purchased the wood for this yet.

So, I'm ready to start applying Danish oil, and then varnish. I'm going with Watco Dark Walnut Danish oil, but haven't chosen the varnish yet - some kind of oil-based poly. I've tested the Danish oil on some scraps of veneer and it's a perfect medium chocolate brown. Still need to make sure it doesn't do anything weird when it comes in contact with the existing Nexus finish. Fingers crossed.

Danish oil test sample - Steph likes it, and so do I

The Danish oil will take some time to do right though. If you believe certain experts, Danish oil actually requires a bit more time and effort than what's written on the can. Probably start this weekend and hopefully finish by end of next weekend. Danish oil takes several days to dry before you can start the top coat, plus it's humid and hot here, so that's not gonna help at all.

Eureka!

I love these moments. Is it sad that my best inspirations come through accidents and the resolution of problems rather than pure vision? Oh well, you work with what you got.

I thought a bit more about raising the island countertop and realized I can make it a design element. Why try to hide or blend the spacer between the drawers and countertop when I can use it to create a "floating" countertop. This is just what this kitchen needed to make it less ordinary.



boring.



Not boring!

Without the floating spacer, the countertop would just sit right above the drawer (top photo). Now, since I'm raising the countertop, I can use a simple black material and recess it a little bit to create that floating look (bottom photo). Cool.

I'm gonna do the same thing for the main counter against the wall so everything matches. I just have to be careful I don't raise it too much. Not only are high counters a problem, but the hanging wall cabinets are already just barely high enough to maintain the desired 17" space between countertop and bottom of the cabinet.

Refacing IKEA® Cabinets...
Okay, so here's what I've been doing over the last few weeks in preparation for the kitchen overhaul:

The plan - more or less

When we decided to move forward on this, we started with the cabinets.We wanted a clean, modern/mid-century vibe, and we kept seeing the look we wanted on TV and online but couldn't figure out where to get it. It was looking like we'd have to go custom, but we couldn't justify the cost. I did some research on IKEA, and then sat down and planned out a kitchen using their cabinets. It all fit perfectly and our plan came together. There was just one problem... we didn't like any of their door colors.

I tracked down a few companies that make custom doors for IKEA cabinets, but the cost was beyond our budget. Then I had the brilliant idea to just buy IKEA cabinets with their doors and reface them to get the look we want. So that's what I did.

Cutting nirvana

Sanding nirvana

Now, if time is money, then I have not saved anything. In fact, I'd be entirely underwater on this. My out-of-pocket costs are indeed lower than if I'd paid for custom, but it's taking absolutely all of my spare time and dragging the project out for weeks and months. But, the control freak in me is well nourished. I'm rarely satisfied with the work that others do for me for money, so I'd rather do everything myself and if I make any mistakes or take any shorcuts, they're mine to live with and learn from. Besides, I'm happiest when I'm engrossed in a project. This is the biggest project I've taken on since I restored my BMW 320i twenty years ago, so I guess this must be nirvana for me.

First one done - before (right) and after (left)

Okay, okay. Veneer. What I'm doing is "reskinning" all the doors, drawer fronts, and side panels that came with the IKEA cabinets. I'm using PSA veneer, which is real wood veneer with a 3M® peal-and-stick adhesive on the backside. "PSA" stands for Pressure Sensitive Adhesive, which means you must apply pressure to the veneer using a special scraper tool after carefully applying it. PSA is easier than the old contact cement method, but it doesn't work well on bare wood, so the decision to start with pre-finished doors has really worked out well. There are certainly tricks to the process, it's time-consuming as hell, and I've had to consider a number of potential gotchas before forging ahead. Happily, the first door came out perfectly and it just got better with each successive one.

It's taken approximately a month and I've completed veneering forty different doors, drawer fronts, and panels. I've gone through seven 4x8 ft sheets of quarter-sawn walnut veneer. The big challenge was allotting specific sections from the different sheets of veneer to each section of cabinets. We wanted to run the grain horizontally across the cabinet fronts, and maintain a continuous pattern across each full section. This was tough because the grain pattern and color varied so wildly from sheet to sheet, and within each sheet. It took some seriously careful planning and vision to make it work, and some mistakes were made, but the final results are overall quite pleasing.


3 drawers, dishwasher, and sink front



4 drawers to the right of the oven in the island

There are a few special panels and trim strips left to veneer, but I'm ready to move on to finishing with Danish oil and then varnish. Once I have the supplies, this should take 2 or 3 weeks to complete.

5 doors for bar side of island



The last several hours have been trying. I'm down to less than 10 cabinet panels that need to be veneered (I'll explain that later) and hoped to come home last night and finish those off this weekend. The whole kitchen plan seemed to be coming together perfectly... quite atypical for one of my projects, and certainly not expected of a project of this scope despite the hours of careful research and planning. Well, when I got to this one stupid filler panel that goes over the built-in oven, there it was: the glitch that always comes.

 

There's certainly been hiccups in the process, but this one had me seriously worried some major deviations would be needed. It took me all last night, unpacking and measuring appliances, pouring over installation manuals, collecting and analyzing dimensional data, consulting the stars and reading bones to determine that I did not have sufficient space above the oven for my cooktop. It took me till late into the evening and a good part of this morning to figure out exactly how to remedy the problem.

The original plan was to have a 24" oven in a separate cabinet, not in the island below the cooktop. But when we decided to go with a 30" oven, we moved it to the island and I neglected to consider whether it would fit beneath the cooktop. Still, I feel justified in bitching that when I planned this all out, I was thrown off by:

• The unavailability of Ikea appliance manuals online
• Lying and misleading photos on Ikea's Website
• A lack of complete design and installation information from Ikea
• The erroneous assortment of parts that Ikea's little helpers sold me

Once I figured that out, I was able to move forward.

 

Bottom line... I need to raise the countertop on the island an inch or more without making the countertop too high. 36 inches is the standard counter height. The cooktop we purchased (Dacor® Distinctive® 30") rises 2" above the countertop surface, and we're not tall people, so any additional height is a problem. The oven (IKEA® FRAMTID 30") has to be 4-5/8" minimum off the floor, so the kick panel has to be at least 3-7/8", no less. The oven requires a 27-3/4" vertical space, and the cooktop requires at least 4" above that. All this dictates a counter height of approx. 36-3/4", which is marginally acceptable. I am, for the moment, reservedly relieved.

So, after chasing down several possible solutions, I determined my best solution is to simply add layers of plywood to the top of the island onto which the quartz countertop will sit. I'll have to fashion some veneered filler strips to cover the edges of the plywood between the underside of the countertop and the top of the drawer fronts. I'm running out of veneer, so it could be a challenge to find good veneer to match the drawer fronts.

Okay, so, about all that veneer business. I'll explain everything in my next post. Promise.

It was a dark and stormy night...

Steph and I bought this house on the hill in the woods near the lake in 2008. We thought we'd spend the first few months painting and decorating, but soon learned that such menial home improvements would repeatedly lose out to more critical repairs and upgrades. In the first 3 months I had torn up and reshaped the terrain of the east yard to alleviate a serious drainage problem and reconstructed a portion of the stone foundation that had crumbled from the water damage, along with a 25 ft section of the wooden structure that was rotten and bug ridden. Just a hint of projects to come, but what a way to jump into home ownership.

Since then I've replaced the boiler, the roof and gutters, reinsulated half the attic, built a brick sidewalk, restacked a 50 ft rock wall along the driveway, cut down some trees and split them for firewood, installed laundry cabinets, repaired two sets of washer & dryers and a dishwasher, installed shelving in 4 closets, built a custom shelving unit in the foyer, restored the cedar deck, upgraded the electrical panel, replaced the front door, constructed a home recording studio, hemmed curtains, built a bunny condo for Jimmy Durante (aka, "bunny"), etc., etc., etc. Bottom line, there's no shortage of things to fix, build, and improve around here. And, few of these things did I know how to do before I did them. Most have gone very well though and I still have all my limbs and digits.

People ask me if I'll come do these things for them at their houses. I say, no way. I couldn't handle the pressure, and I wouldn't get the same satisfaction that compells me to do these things for my own home. We can explore the psychology behind all that later perhaps.

A-n-y-w-a-y,... I've finally embarked on a project that will genuinely improve our lives in an aesthetic and functional way. I'm replacing the kitchen...soup to nuts. I guess that's what this blog is about. So, stick around for merry tales of cabinet building, wall framing, drywall, flooring, lighting, appliances, plumbing, wires, sparks, explosions, tears and mad, mad laughter.