Craftsman Kitchen Renovation Beginnings

[awomanwithahammer]

Really beautiful kitchen, and I like the countertops. So nice.

[Gothichome]

NH, that looks just great, nice craftsman details, with the true simplicity of design and function that craftsman homes should have. I must commend who ever suggested the milled beading and the corner blocks.

[TechieTechie]

I thought I'd send one last kitchen renovation post. Our breakfast bar chairs came in this week and they are so wonderful. White oak like the cabinets and the finish and color match perfectly. Made by an Amish an Amish furniture maker, but sold through a Deutsch Furniture in MN. My wife is thrilled with the counters and the range hood. I joke and say it could suck the buttons off your shirt if your not careful. I'm not sure how it will impact our heating bill come winter, but it does remove the smoke and cooking smells from the house for sure. We have about half the kitchen filled, so there are plenty of boxes to empty, but we're taking some time to find out what we really need as we've lived months without some of these gadgets, so it might be time to reevaluate certain kitchen tools we don't use. Anyone thinking of renovating their kitchen the Dekton Fossil counters are great and the Zephyr rangehood. The cabinet pulls and handles, plus the lighting are by Rejuvenation, so they are solid brass and have a matching antiqued finish. I included one of the pictures of what we started with back in April. Thank you for the encouraging comments along the way. china cupboard - Copy.jpg

NH, your kitchen is fantastic. Can you provide the make/model of the cabinets? they are really quite spiffy. Thanks for sharing.

[nhguy]

The cabinets were made by a local cabinet shop of our design.
If I was going to renovate our kitchen today with what I know I'd go to Crown Point in Claremont, NH.
Our cabinet shop was the worst, but because they were local I went with them even though I heard bad things. Well, I should have listened to friends that said to shop elsewhere. So with that said I can't and won't give the name as I don't want others to suffer our fate. I had two friends renovate their kitchens this year both used Crown Point and were thrilled with the design they got and the workmanship and customer service. Our cabinets alone were $25K+

[nhguy]

I thought I'd send one last kitchen renovation post. Our breakfast bar chairs came in this week and they are so wonderful. White oak like the cabinets and the finish and color match perfectly. Made by an Amish an Amish furniture maker, but sold through a Deutsch Furniture in MN. My wife is thrilled with the counters and the range hood. I joke and say it could suck the buttons off your shirt if your not careful. I'm not sure how it will impact our heating bill come winter, but it does remove the smoke and cooking smells from the house for sure. We have about half the kitchen filled, so there are plenty of boxes to empty, but we're taking some time to find out what we really need as we've lived months without some of these gadgets, so it might be time to reevaluate certain kitchen tools we don't use. Anyone thinking of renovating their kitchen the Dekton Fossil counters are great and the Zephyr rangehood. The cabinet pulls and handles, plus the lighting are by Rejuvenation, so they are solid brass and have a matching antiqued finish. I included one of the pictures of what we started with back in April. Thank you for the encouraging comments along the way. china cupboard - Copy.jpg

NH, your kitchen is fantastic. Can you provide the make/model of the cabinets? they are really quite spiffy. Thanks for sharing.

I should add the wood is white oak with a Minwax golden oak stain with a matte lacquer finish. The hardware is from Rejuvenation. I can give you the specifics on any part of the kitchen as I have extensive electronic files on every part. Anything I can do to make someone else have less work researching their kitchen renovation my information is available.
If you really insist I can give you the cabinet shop name, but I advise against using them.
Jen, I noticed you are a former member and are living in the greater Cleveland area. I might suggest you look at the local Amish craftsmen around there. They do very good custom cabinet work at reasonable prices. My wife is from Lancaster Cty PA we looked into working with them, but the distance of 10 hours was too far to make it manageable as you can't exactly email your ideas to them. You have at most an hours drive to be in one of their shops.

[phil]

You could still see if they have a website. I dont know much about their philosophies but I have heard they do use email. maybe there is variation between people and communities but I have heard it is used for reasonable circumstances and there are Amish websites. Part of their beliefs may just be that they dont use it as entertainment, and others might know a lot more about it. I dont know of any communities near me but it might be something someone else here could clarify.

I did a course in google sketchup, I just had a couple of lessons and covid ended the class early , so I'm basically a sketchup dropout. It showed how you can just download it and fool around and get to the point where it would be really useful for this. with an accurate dimensional plan it might be easier to have things made by someone remotely.

I made mine with the help of my dad who was a cabinetmaker and he showed me lots. My design was very similar and I want to do more.
The way he showed me you make panels and then also make a skeleton in a similar way. the skeleton functions as the drawer guides so no silly rollers and self closing features to break later. I did use the euro hinges. I wish I had included a breadboard. he hand cut some of the dovetails and I also machine cut some of them.
a couple of the things the commercial guys do that I dont like, instead of doing blind dovetails for the drawer fronts they often double up the wood on the drawer fronts. they also make boxes that have two layers of plywood where they join the next box. only one layer is needed but it is easier to sell them as units that way. I intend to do more cabinetry and I have the drawers made for that. those will be only a foot deep and of fill one wall above that with big cupboards.
one valuable thing I learned was how to make the mortise and tenon panels with just a tablesaw. I was able to save quite a bit and so I didnt need to use any particleboard. I did use some maple veneer plywood and thin plywood for the filler panels.
so mine is a combination of new and old techniques and fairly similar design with a face front and panel doors.
I made the drawer bottoms 1/4" ply but also added a sheet of white formica so they both slot into the drawer sides and front. the drawer back just meets the plywood at it's top surface, so the bottoms can be removed if needed. Just 1 finishing nail holds the drawer bottoms.

some of the commercial cabinets use real junk for the drawer bottoms and then they can fall apart. Traditionally there was no plywood.

If it's all planned well you can select the drawer fronts and make the grain continue through from one to the next. The maple I got was really curly and full of giant knots so I had to select each part but with that came some very interesting ribbon and neat grain patterns. Some of the hard knotty twisty stuff is really beautiful because it shows a lot of ribbon and depth.