Kitchen Cabinets Mission Style

[Chestnut]

Bought a house and the kitchen sucks. Go figure. House was built originally in the late 1920s, I think it took them a few years because some of the dates on lumber I've found says 1929 but the title states it was built in 1926. Since I've moved in I've been remodeling everything to the era of when the house was built with a slight modern twist. Obviously I'm not going to put back knob and tube wiring and fuse panels are great, when they aren't limited to 6 circuits. Like the title says this is my project Journal for the kitchen cabinets. This is my first project log on the site so here it goes.

I did a full 3d model of the kitchen in AutoCAD and chose rendering materials to come close to the colors i plan on using. The appliances in the pictures show up as gray blocks because i was too lazy to be more creative than that. I plan on making the doors and frames from quarter sawn red oak. With the cabinet carcass made from generic oak plywood. For a finish i plan on doing a medium brown mission style finish to accent the wood used.

Feel free to post your opinions and comments.

[Guest]

  QS White Oak would be more authentic and is nicer looking, in my opinion.   Unless you sre getting the red super cheap? why not use white?  Red will not have nearly as much ray fleck figure.  

[wtnhighlander]

Looks like a good kitchen upgrade to me!

[davewyo]

Thanks for posting the journal. It's an ambitious project.

I like the detail on the underside of the upper cabinets.

What are you doing for counters?

Where is the sink going?  I assume it will go beside the dishwasher (across from the stove).

Are there any windows? It's always nice to have a window or two in a kitchen...

That one cabinet which goes all the way down to the counter top looks unusual to me.

[JosephThomas]

Are the the drawers blending in because the fronts are slabs? Or are there no drawers?  

Looks like a good start.  I'm sure this is a long project filled with frustrations, lots of hard work, etc...but in the end you can look at it and use it very day far more than most of the other woodworking projects you'll do....so don't cut any corners! Good luck!

[Chestnut]

Going with QS red because the hardwood supplier that i go through has red at a great price and the QS red looks amazing where as the white is quite boring. I spoke with the the owner of the shop for a long while in debate. I'm also not going to stay in this house a super long time so i couldn't really justify the cost knowing I'm not staying forever.

Sink is next to the dishwasher, it's under the cabinets that are bumped up a bit higher. I'm used to sinks under windows so i didn't really know what to do here so i just came up with the idea to make the upper cabinets shorter to give the sink more room. The corner cabinet on top i extended to the counter top and will place an outlet inside for a coffee maker/toaster/blender nook to store these items out of the way. Currently i have enough counter space for none of them so it should be a win. It also makes accessing the corner of the top cabinet easier. There is a window between the stove and the fridge, and it's pretty good sized. Counters are TBD.

I don't know what to do with drawers currently they are modeled as slabs but I'm not totally sold on that. I also thought of doing a recessed panel like the doors but am not sure how I'd pull that off. Any one have some ideas?

[Tpt life]

I am not trying to sway you, but I have never heard anyone call QS white oak boring before. At least, not in the context of red. Carry on. Only you know what you want. 

[Chestnut]

I realized my mistake after i posed and was too lazy to hit the edit button. My specific dealer got a bad load of white oak and a great load of red. His white has little to no flecks and the red looks like the white should. If it wasn't for the pores and color I'd have sworn that he switched them on accident.

On the whole I'd agree with white oak being far better.

[JosephThomas]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

I don't know what to do with drawers currently they are modeled as slabs but I'm not totally sold on that. I also thought of doing a recessed panel like the doors but am not sure how I'd pull that off. Any one have some ideas?

Are you doing fancy drawers with half blind dovetails or something similar? If you're just doing normal false-front drawers, which is what I see in most kitchens, attaching the front to the drawers is pretty much the same whether it's a slab or frame and panel.  Just make sure you're making the panels out of thicker material rabbeted to fit in the frames, the back of it should line up flush with the frames.

[Janello]

While I'm not a huge fan of using QS red oak..I disagree that QS white would look better anyway. QS white oak cabinets would drive me insane. Go into the kitchen in the morning and get wacked with 200 board foot of ray fleck isn't my idea of a quiet sunday morning.

Anyway...One thing I don't like is the way you have panels on the ends of the cabinet. They should be solid ply. That shouldn't look like the door fronts. And..the drawers should match the doors. I personally like thinner rails and thicker stiles on the drawers to give them some definition and separation from the doors.

[shaneymack]

1 hour ago, Janello said:

Anyway...One thing I don't like is the way you have panels on the ends of the cabinet. They should be solid ply. That shouldn't look like the door fronts. And..the drawers should match the doors. 

Who says the sides should be solid ply? Never heard of such a rule. I did a kitchen in the past that had the raised panels wrap around to the ends of the cabinets and in front of the island. The client wanted it so I did it. The kitchen company I use for the houses I build does that sometimes as well at the clients request. If he doesnt do that he sometimes does some kind of applied molding to dress it up a bit.

You also cant always match the drawer fronts with the doors. If you are doing raised panels for doors it only works on large drawers because when you factor in the thickness of the rails you are left with a ridiculous looking raised panel or no raise at all hence going with solid at least on the smaller drawers. It also looks silly on small drawers if you have a 1"-2" flat panel. 

[Janello]

8 minutes ago, shaneymack said:

Who says the sides should be solid ply? Never heard of such a rule. I did a kitchen in the past that had the raised panels wrap around to the ends of the cabinets and in front of the island. The client wanted it so I did it. The kitchen company I use for the houses I build does that sometimes as well at the clients request. If he doesnt do that he sometimes does some kind of applied molding to dress it up a bit.

You also cant always match the drawer fronts with the doors. If you are doing raised panels for doors it only works on large drawers because when you factor in the thickness of the rails you are left with a ridiculous looking raised panel or no raise at all hence going with solid at least on the smaller drawers. It also looks silly on small drawers if you have a 1"-2" flat panel. 

No rules, just suggestions. But I'm right. If you wrap the panels around the side, you've taken away from what dresses up the cabinet faces. Look at 10,000 kitchen pictures and tell me how many you see where the sides look like the face. He is building his own cabinets...he can make the drawers match easily...why not do it that way.....since it will obviously look better.

[shaneymack]

Who says the sides should be solid ply? Never heard of such a rule. I did a kitchen in the past that had the raised panels wrap around to the ends of the cabinets and in front of the island. The client wanted it so I did it. The kitchen company I use for the houses I build does that sometimes as well at the clients request. If he doesnt do that he sometimes does some kind of applied molding to dress it up a bit.

You also cant always match the drawer fronts with the doors. If you are doing raised panels for doors it only works on large drawers because when you factor in the thickness of the rails you are left with a ridiculous looking raised panel or no raise at all hence going with solid at least on the smaller drawers. It also looks silly on small drawers if you have a 1"-2" flat panel. 

No rules, just suggestions. But I'm right. If you wrap the panels around the side, you've taken away from what dresses up the cabinet faces. Look at 10,000 kitchen pictures and tell me how many you see where the sides look like the face. He is building his own cabinets...he can make the drawers match easily...why not do it that way.....since it will obviously look better.

Clearly you aren't getting it. Go and make a 6" drawer with a raised panel front and get back to me.....

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk

[Chestnut]

7 hours ago, JosephThomas said:

Are you doing fancy drawers with half blind dovetails or something similar?

I'm probably going to do rabbeted half blind dovetails to attach the drawer faces to the sides. Doing a flush mount doors and drawer faces it seems like the easiest way to attach everything and hide the drawer slides. I'll probably just go with a slab drawer front and use hardware to add a little depth to the drawers.

 

51 minutes ago, Janello said:

Go into the kitchen in the morning and get wacked with 200 board foot of ray fleck isn't my idea of a quiet sunday morning.

Anyway...One thing I don't like is the way you have panels on the ends of the cabinet. They should be solid ply. That shouldn't look like the door fronts. And..the drawers should match the doors.

Interesting that does make me think about how busy all those ray flecks are going to be. The decision is made and I'm sticking with it. Honestly the wood is bought already just not delivered yet. I'll probably just vary my finishing method to get a result that isn't busy but still shows the nature of the wood if looked for.

As for the sides of the cabinets. Every where i look the cabinet ends are the same design as the door panel. Maybe it's a regional thing? We are pretty crazy here and don't go outside for like 6 months strait. I like adding the design there personally because those large flat plywood panels are going to look awfully awkward when everything else is going to be solid wood.

[Janello]

 

Getting back to you, shane.

10 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

Interesting that does make me think about how busy all those ray flecks are going to be

My point was, red oak ray flek is not as pronounced as white, so I think if you are going oak it is the better option for cabinets. 

[shaneymack]

5 minutes ago, Janello said:

 

Getting back to you, shane.

We can definitely argue personal taste all day. I think that looks silly. My kitchen at home and most homes that I build have solid fronts on smaller drawers. Again, this will come down to the person making the kitchen. If you put one of those big long pulls that everyone seems to want nowadays on that itty bitty raised panel you have there it would look even more ridiculous, It would overpower it. 

You said in your original post "  They should be solid ply " this is just not true and can find thousands of examples of kitchens that have something on the ends to take away from a plain boring ugly ply side. 

[Janello]

1 minute ago, shaneymack said:

We can definitely argue personal taste all day. I think that looks silly. My kitchen at home and most homes that I build have solid fronts on smaller drawers. Again, this will come down to the person making the kitchen. If you put one of those big long pulls that everyone seems to want nowadays on that itty bitty raised panel you have there it would look even more ridiculous, It would overpower it. 

You said in your original post "  They should be solid ply " this is just not true and can find thousands of examples of kitchens that have something on the ends to take away from a plain boring ugly ply side. 

We will have to agree to disagree. I think the skinny panel looks awesome. 

I retract my statement with the word "should".  I know it's done, I just think it looks rediculous and way too busy. It's all a matter of taste...different stokes for different folks. 

 

[Tom 'Tommaso' Valeriano]

1 hour ago, Janello said:

Anyway...One thing I don't like is the way you have panels on the ends of the cabinet. They should be solid ply. That shouldn't look like the door fronts. And..the drawers should match the doors. I personally like thinner rails and thicker stiles on the drawers to give them some definition and separation from the doors.

I'm doing a mission style kitchen, albeit in cherry, and that's some good info to keep in mind.  thanks.

 

27 minutes ago, shaneymack said:

Who says the sides should be solid ply? Never heard of such a rule. I did a kitchen in the past that had the raised panels wrap around to the ends of the cabinets and in front of the island. The client wanted it so I did it. The kitchen company I use for the houses I build does that sometimes as well at the clients request. If he doesnt do that he sometimes does some kind of applied molding to dress it up a bit.

You also cant always match the drawer fronts with the doors. If you are doing raised panels for doors it only works on large drawers because when you factor in the thickness of the rails you are left with a ridiculous looking raised panel or no raise at all hence going with solid at least on the smaller drawers. It also looks silly on small drawers if you have a 1"-2" flat panel. 

One of the things i'm doing with my cabinets is to not do plywood sides, i've never liked that solid plywood side look.  Instead continuing the rails and stiles on the sides, attempting to give it more of a 'fine furniture' look.  Personal preference i think.

 

[Janello]

To me, that looks like there is a door on the side of the cabinet. Silly.

[shaneymack]

1 minute ago, Tom 'Tommaso' Valeriano said:

 

 

One of the things i'm doing with my cabinets is to not do plywood sides, i've never liked that solid plywood side look.  Instead continuing the rails and stiles on the sides, attempting to give it more of a 'fine furniture' look.  Personal preference i think.

 

I think its a great idea. It is my preference as well for the same reason. Id much prefer to see a wood side than a piece of plywood. It is normally a detail on higher end kitchens. 

[wdwerker]

My rule of thumb is a drawer front needs to be around 9" tall for the panel to look reasonable. You can take that down to 7" tall if you make the rails narrower.

It all boils down to personal taste. When I build a stack of drawers with a large one at the bottom I make all the smaller drawers with a slab front and a raised panel on the bottom large drawer.

[shaneymack]

3 minutes ago, wdwerker said:

My rule of thumb is a drawer front needs to be around 9" tall for the panel to look reasonable. You can take that down to 7" tall if you make the rails narrower.

It all boils down to personal taste. When I build a stack of drawers with a large one at the bottom I make all the smaller drawers with a slab front and a raised panel on the bottom large drawer.

Same is done in the 150 houses i have built in the last 12 years. 

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Janello said:

To me, that looks like there is a door on the side of the cabinet. Silly.

I guess different strokes for different folks but most high-end kitchens I see have raised panels on the side, just like the picture here.  It makes them look more like furniture and less like a plywood box.  The panel is just decorative, it sits on top of a plywood box.  To me when I see flat plywood on the side it just looks cheap.   They also (usually) nail the crown to a 3/4" strip applied on top of the face frame so the crown is on the same plane as the doors.  

[Chestnut]

1 minute ago, Mike. said:

They also (usually) nail the crown to a 3/4" strip applied on top of the face frame so the crown is on the same plane as the doors.  

Didn't know that. Now that is some handy information.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

Didn't know that. Now that is some handy information.

it makes a huge difference and is so easy to do.  Of course you wouldn't do that with inset doors, and if I were building an arts & crafts style kitchen I would do all inset doors and drawers.  I'd make the doors (and bigger drawers) frame and flat panel and copy the rail/stile proportions from stickley pieces.  The rails/stiles tend to be wider than a standard shaker door.