Bathroom Remodel

[Chestnut]

This isn't likely to be an exciting thread as it'll just be standard cabinet build.

Existing bathrooms and laundry room look like this.

The new cabinets will be cherry, and I'm not a fan of the overlay design so all the doors and drawers will be inset.

I have already made the lower cabinet carcass for the laundry room and 2 bathrroms. I have a deadline to make for the granite measurement so i have been steadily working on these. The laundry room above will be slightly modified. The cabinet will be shortened from the 6' that it is now to 4'. Where the sink currently is creates a clog point while moving through from the garage (to the left in the picture) into the main house. I'll also be making a small bench for putting on shoes etc. The new cabinet is below

The main upstairs bath

Currently I'm in the process of making drawers. From the previous 2 pictures it should be clear there are a lot of drawers. Which means a lot of drawer parts and a lot of organization to keep everything strait. The drawers are all being made from #2 com cherry i got off Craig's list years ago. at $1/BF it's cheaper than plywood.

More drawer parts that have been squared all faces and cut to length and are ready for router based dovetails. With the Porter Cable jig in the picture below i can knock out drawers quite quickly.

 

[treeslayer]

Way good start @Chestnut, full extension BB drawer slides or something else ?

[wtnhighlander]

Nothing boring about quality work, Drew. Keep those photos coming!

[Coop]

You claim to have a full time job but you keep pumping these projects out! I hope you are doing one bathroom at a time for obvious reasons? Following this to the end. 

[Chestnut]

Forgot to give some details. The main structure ply is A-1 Grade cherry MDF so these cabinets are HEAVY. The MDF was a craig's list find for $25 a sheet and I couldn't pass it up. I bought 10 sheets. The MDF ply had to be expensive because the veneer is way thicker than I'm used to seeing from box store ply. For the side panels and face frames so far I've used all the left over 5/4 Cherry that I had from a project. It's not a thickness i commonly use so it was just eating space on my lumber rack. It may have been a bit wasteful as most of the extra thickness got turned into saw dust. It did allow me to get 3 side panels from the thickness opposed to 2.

The non wall facing sides of the cabinet are being made frame and panel style. The panels for these 2 are book matched as they will be more visible. As i mentioned above I was able to get 3 panels per board thickness so the 3rd bathroom won't have a book matched side but it's tucked in a corner and is a lot harder to see so it's not a bit deal.

it

This cabinet has an off wall design that juts out. So i made the right stile a lot wider to account for the 4.25" of wall jut out. When in place it should look roughly the same as the cabinet above just narrower.

13 hours ago, treeslayer said:

Way good start @Chestnut, full extension BB drawer slides or something else ?

Yeah full extension BB slides. I'm going side mount instead of under mount. Mostly because it's what I know how to make well and quick. One of these days I want to try the blum under mount hardware because I know it's quality stuff. Maybe when I do an entire kitchen.

10 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

Keep those photos coming!

WIll do.

9 hours ago, Coop said:

You claim to have a full time job but you keep pumping these projects out! I hope you are doing one bathroom at a time for obvious reasons? Following this to the end. 

Because of the granite supplier i basically have to do them all at once. They didn't really want to make 4 trips to my place spaced by months just get measurements and drag their project out. I have a plan to stagger the smallest bathroom, or master bath, so that it's only going to be out of commission for a day or 2 max. I'm also only doing the vanities and tops maybe some paint and other small touch up. The floors and showers are all recent remodels.

[Chestnut]

Worked on drawers. I got the top 3.25" tall drawers finished for 2 of the vanities. Once i got the router jig running the drawers went fast.

For dresser bottoms I'm using some 1/4" BB ply that is left over from previous projects. To secure the bottom i cut a rabbet on the bottom edge and glued it on.

This helps me keep the drawers square on glue up and results in a nice strong drawer bottom that doesn't rattle. If your wondering about strength, in my testing they hold well over 200 lbs (this is where i stopped loading my test drawer it wasn't the failure point). The slids are only rated for 100 and it's a bathroom. So good enough for a small child that may want to use the drawer for hide and seek.

[Chestnut]

So with the way I constructed the cabinets I need to make some spaces to allow for easy installation of the drawer slides. I milled some scraps down to size and glued them on with wood glue and super glue with accelerator to give a fast but strong connection. The other cabinets will have a frame and panel side and i'll likely attach the spaces with glue and screws there to ensure they don't work their way loose.

I was using this as a way to ditch some odd length scraps i have hanging around. Once milled to the same thickness there is no reason the spacers need to be a singular piece. So i glued 2 end to end. I used spaces between the pieces to ensure they are roughly equal spaced. The top and bottom of the spaces aren't being used as reference surfaces so high accuracy isn't necessary. I am using rockler drawer slide jig to ensure the slides are perpendicular to the face of the cabinet.

After the slides are installed it's just a matter of attaching the drawer. I used some 1/8" spaces to provide clearance from the face frame and a square to make sure the drawer is perpendicular to the face frame.

Now i just have to repeat this 17 more times and then install the drawer faces... and then apply finish to everything and make doors and.... man the list seems never ending.

Some day I'm going to do our kitchen cabinets.... not looking forward to that any more... Maybe after 5 years break from making cabinets I'll be more excited.

[wtnhighlander]

Nice work, Drew!

But yeah, a kitchen full of cabinets from a hobby shop sounds very little like fun.

[Chet]

4 hours ago, Chestnut said:

Some day I'm going to do our kitchen cabinets.... not looking forward to that any more... Maybe after 5 years break from making cabinets I'll be more excited.

I remember when I did this.  The only way it worked was to stack each completed cabinet and cupboard in our living room.  It took me about six months of days off to finish.  Then I took a two week vacation to rip out the kitchen, do any repairs and then put it back together.  Refrigerator was on the back patio and we used our Coleman camp stove to cook.

[Chestnut]

So this is more remodeling than woodworking but I'll return to woodworking. Part of the launday room remodel was moving the water lines to the left roughly 4 feet.

I typically like plumbing work and sweating pipe is usually fun to me but this was a difficult location and I ended up having to remove and fix 2 joints that ended up leaking. It didn't take much work to fix the leaks but it was annoying. Now it's all sealed up.

After the plumbing I had to fix some dry wall damage which went fast and easy.

Next up is to mount this large pile of soft close drawer slides in the remaining carcasses. All of the slides and hinges for this project cost $400. It's staggering the cost for hardware but it's all high quality stuff and all soft close. Megan loves to slam doors and drawers so now i won't cringe every time i hear her close something across the house. I also bought a big pack of 1,000 blum screws. They make a high quality screw that has deep threads that grab really well in all sorts of wood. They also seem quite strong compared do the hardware store junk all while costing the same!

[Coop]

When I hear drawers and doors slam, I know it’s time to load up the puppy and go for a ride. Nothing good could come from staying around. Looking good Drew! 

[Chestnut]

Been slowly chugging away on the cabinets. I got all the drawers installed for the laundry room cabinet and main bathroom cabinet. I then installed the main carcas into the room as i have granite measuring in a week and needed them installed for the crew to measure.

I added a touch of sapwood on the side panel of the main bath just beucase the peices fit together well and I for what ever reason liked how it looked.

Laundry room is going to turn out awesome. Having the extra 24" of floor space next to the cabinet is already proving useful. I'm excited to have the sink up and running as it will be my utility sink as the only large sink we have in the house currently is the kitchen sink, and that sucks.

Down stairs bathroom. Now you can see how the side panel turned out. I had a very wide stile on the right side but most of it gets covered up by the wall. Now it looks nice and balanced. I also did a narrow left stile so after the face frame was installed the stiles are roughly the same width.

This vanity will get drawers that are notched to go around the plumbing.

The doors and notched drawers on the 2nd item on my list of things to do. Next item is to make the carcass for the master bedroom which will be the same notched drawer design as the basement bedroom above. We held off on paint so we could get an idea of what the granite would look like in place, probably going to regret that.

[pkinneb]

Cabinets look great Drew!! Interesting paint job in the bathroom 

[Chet]

1 hour ago, pkinneb said:

Cabinets look great Drew!! Interesting paint job in the bathroom 

I was thinking the same thing about the cabinets but  Was going to say its to bad you couldn't get the painting done before having to install the cabinets for the granite guys. 

I think a lot of people are too quick at removing sapwood when in reality in can be a nice focal point in a project. 

[Chestnut]

42 minutes ago, Chet said:

Was going to say its to bad you couldn't get the painting done before having to install the cabinets for the granite guys. 

Megan wants to pick a color from the granite for the walls, beings that the slabs we looked at are highly variable and the sink cutouts are a significant portion we are left unsure what the exact colors are going to be. I do all the edging so I offered to wait. So i'm really only punishing myself. We are also going to do a small row of tile so that should make things a bit easier on the top side at least.

[Tom King]

Looking good.

Sorry I didn't think to post it earlier, but for utility sinks, I always have built bases (throw any legs away) so that when you are standing, you can place your hands palm down on the bottom, without having to bend over.  We have one of the cheap plastic ones, in a plywood base, in the Puppy Room, for washing puppies.  Many puppy buyers have copied the idea.

[Chestnut]

Progress has been made. We got the new washer and dryer both front load because with 2 short people reaching down into a washer requires a step stool (joking but not too far from the truth). It also allows us to have a table on top of the washer for storage and folding capabilities. I made a thickened slab the same way I made the vanity area for Megan. it's a rough torsion style with ribs attached to plywood. I used clamps and cauls to get enough leverage to securely attach the ribs. I didn't want nail holes in the surface.

Here is the underside when done. At the bottom i glued on a front piece of solid cherry to hide the inside.

After this was done I glued on a sheet of 1/4" Baltic birch ply. This was done on my bench with a pile of wood for the clamping force. 100 BF should exert a good amount of force on thin plywood ribs. To mount it to the wall i just screwed a cleat to the wall and set the top in place. Above you can see i left a gap all around the outside so the cleat is hidden by the thicker front cherry edging. I had to cut a notch for the outlet. The top is not fastened in place so in emergency i can lift it out.

Next i worked on getting the drawer fronts and doors mounted to the cabinets that have been installed. This was tedious work of which I didn't do the best job. Some of the drawer faces drag on the face frame and some of the gaps are uneven. Not being fine furniture i may address some of the rubbing issues but the gaps are going to stay uneven. The problem steamed from how i attached the fronts. I used the holes drilled for the pulls to drill a pilot hole. I then used that pilot hole to secure the front with screws through the pull holes. Then i attached screws through the inside of the drawer into the front. Some where in that the drawer shifted on the hinges unpredictably causing the gaps to be uneven despite my efforts otherwise. If doing this method again a transfer punch would be a far better solution as to my method.

Laundry room. And i just realized from this picture that I installed the book matched panel upside down...... . Luckily there isn't enough space between the washer and drier to get a good look at the doors so any one that may notice won't ever get a good look at it. The gaps here worked out far better as i had slightly revised my installation method by this point. The bottom drawer doesn't "self close" all the way though despite a good 3 hours troubleshooting the problem...

[curlyoak]

Well done! It appears you fitted the drawer faces after the cabinets were installed. Does that mean going back and forth to the shop to fit them with the tight reveals?

[bradpotts]

Looks good! You will probably be the only person to ever criticize them. That’s what makes building things for yourself hard. I like the shelf over the laundry. 

[Chestnut]

3 hours ago, curlyoak said:

Well done! It appears you fitted the drawer faces after the cabinets were installed. Does that mean going back and forth to the shop to fit them with the tight reveals?

Yes my fit bit registered 100 flights of stairs that day.

[Chestnut]

Wow it's been a month since I updated this. Well quite a bit has happened a lot of small steps and then one big step.

One small step was making the upper cabinet for above the washer and dryer. It was a very quick and simple cabinet. It will get 4 doors eventually but for now it's doing it's job as a shelving unit.

I used 1/2" BB ply for the shelves and did some sagulation to figure out how much support they'd need. I ended up adding 1.25" for support and it for sure helps the unit look nice untill i can make doors. Other small steps was multiple days of painting  as well as picking colors etc.

The big step forward was getting all of the granite installed. The installer came last week Wednesday. Then after that was 3 days of installing faucets and hooking up sink drains. It required me to cut off all the existing P traps and reconfigure each drain setup. The first one went slow but after that things went a lot faster.

Here is the laundry room. This is my "utility" sink. It's really going to be for cleaning off some odds and ends and random use. We have almost repainted the entire house now so there won't be many more paint brushes to paint. The slab of granite had 2 sides. One side was polished like normal and the opposite side had a "leathered" texture. We chose to have the leathered texture up. It feels really cool, it's textured but yet is silky smooth.

Downstiars, this is the closest bathroom to my shop in fact that's my shop door in the background off to the left. With it so close i put the drawers off as it's only a couple steps.

This cabinet was one of the first done but will probably be the last finished. I focused on getting the drawewrs figured out for the master bath as thouse are going to be the most used.

Since this picture i have installed the final drawer. I wanted to wait to see how the sink would interact with the drawer and it turns out the drawer will completely miss the sink. The top 2 drawers were notched to go around the drain in the center and are not as deep as the cabinet to avoid the water valves. It ends up working out really nice the drawers have a ton of space in them. More details to come.

The main bathroom is almost complete, it really just needs a mirror and some trim. The trim has been stained to match the existing trim and is waiting for finish.

The little stool around the toilet is a home made squatty potty. I could have sworn someone posted one on this site before. I made this one years ago out of mahogany. I made it out of mahogany as a pseudo joke because I don't really get why the wood is so "popular" as it's quite boring in grain and look.

[Mark J]

12 hours ago, Chestnut said:

I don't really get why the wood is so "popular"

I believe it is because mahogany is so easy to work, particularly for carved details.  And because of its reddish color.

[wtnhighlander]

When you need to turn out a lot of furniture, boring grain is a blessing. Mahogany is predictable to work with, carves well in detail, is durable, and grows in big trees with lots of clear lumber. A dream for mass production. While figure is uncommon, when it occurs it can be amazing.

David Marks built this Egyptian inspired table, using a piece of 'The Tree', a famously quilted mahogany much desired by instrument makers. When I looked it up after seeing that episode, slices from 'The Tree' were selling for upwards of $1500 per board foot.

Stewart Macdonald is selling acoustic guitar panels that are supposedly from 'The Tree' for $6000.

 

[curlyoak]

On 6/20/2021 at 9:02 PM, Chestnut said:

I don't really get why the wood is so "popular

If you want a furniture like experience outside in Florida get mahogany os sapele. It is also used on boats.Then there is teak. So expensive.

[Mark J]

3 hours ago, curlyoak said:

mahogany os sapele

Could you explain the term or is that a typo?