Book or plan recommendation?

14 years ago

Hi.

After much bouncing back and forth in hubby and I deciding whether or not to hire someone to make some of our kitchen cabinets or just make them all ourselves, we have finally settled on doing it ourselves. While we are handy with tools, and have thus far done all our own work with our remodel, we understand this is a more daunting task, however, after an re-inspiring trip to the salvage places this weekend we know that either A- no one will want to put up with our vision OR B- they will charge us an arm and a leg to do it. Not to mention even it takes months I am sure the cost difference will be well worth it especially if we end up with our exact vision.

With that being said, the only reason I entertained hiring someone to begin with was that I am a little wary on building things like the sink basin cabinet. This is the only real "kitchen cabinet" we are doing in the room. We will also be doing a kitchen island (which should be easy with our skills. All other storage will be taken care of by a floor to ceiling - wall to wall - set of shelving with random open shelves, some re-claimed shutters, and old reclaimed glass windows and a closet pantry.

Can anyone recommend a book or plans for sink basin cabinets. I am looking for something that will go in an "un fit" kitchen. Basically something that has feet. I assume we can alter other plans somewhat. I just need something that will show us how to support the weight of the sink and counter properly.

Also on an different topic, has anyone ever used an old bowling alley floor as a kitchen counter? I am toying with that for the island. I have seen it done elsewhere on the internet, I was just wondering if anyone has had any experience in real life as a DIY.

Thanks in advance.

Kalindi

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Comments (4)

mike_kaiser_gw
14 years ago
A sink base isn't different than any other cabinet and perhaps easier to construct because you don't have to deal with shelves. What tools do you have access to and how do you plan on constructing this cabinet?

Ooops, just noticed the part about wanting feet. So now you're building furniture. Or do want something that just looks like it has feet? To some degree construction techniques will be dependent on available tools, so lets start there.
kai615
Original Author
14 years ago
Yes, I want feet, but it can also be "looks" like feet. I just don't want cabinet to the floor. The house is very old (almost 300 years) so we are sticking with a more country lived in feel, so nothing too ornate. Very simple doors with tapered feet. The sink basin style is being debated right now. I want a farm style sink with front showing. Hubby is not sure he can install one and make it look nice after looking at the hack jobs on display at Home Depot. I need to make a decision on what type of counter we will run up against it before we make that decision. I know this needs to be decided before we build so we can make the cabinet in the right style for the sink so I will figure this out sooner rather than later.

We have a table saw, chop saw, router with table, various dremmel type small tools (I know specific right), jig saw, and we are about to buy a planer if we can ever decide on the best buy (willing to take recommendations if anyone has any they want to give we need it for some flooring we want to try and salvage also). Also, an air compressor which we use for our finishing nailer.

We are also not opposed to buying additional tools as we are only on room 2 of a whole house we have gutted and are redoing. We will still have many, many projects ahead of us to build. We are firm believers in the right tools for the job.
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joann23456
13 years ago
Have you checked out the Ana White site yet? She has plans for kitchen cabinets, step-by-step and easy to follow.

If the kitchen cabinets aren't exactly what you want, look around the rest of the site.

And just fyi, you can build the carcasses (i.e., the cabinets themselves) and buy doors. You can go through a lumber yard or check out the internet. I used Scherr's to buy doors for cabinet carcasses that I bought from Ikea, and was very happy with the quality of their work.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Ana White
kai615
Original Author
13 years ago
joann, I am sorry, I never got back to this thread. I actually got quite lost in the link to Ana White. While I didn't find the sink basin I was looking for I did find an awesome island which I was looking for to complete the kitchen, some great beds with underneath storage, and so many other things that I now want to build it is a bit ridiculous.

Thank you so much for the link. She has a great site with some fantastic plans. I am so happy you shared. I was on there again this morning showing hubby a chicken coop he was wanting to build in the spring.