Kitchen Cabinet Planning Tips
Let’s take a look at some cabinet planning tips. You’ve got some options.
Transcription of Kitchen Cabinet Planning Tips Video
Hey guys welcome back to my house under construction. This is the real rebuild job site, my personal family, home and on today’s. Video we’re, going to be talking about cabinet planning. Now this phase of the construction i don’t have any cabinets in.
Obviously we’ve just started electrical plumbing and mechanical, but it’s really important to think about cabinets at this phase of construction. So today’s. Video five cabinet planning tips. Let’s, get going all right guys.
So we’re, talking cabinet planning, and let me tell you the process that i used on this house that I really generally use on. My projects, most of the time, the architect, is designing the general spaces and putting a rather generic cabinet plan in and then you’re.
Having an interior designer help, you, with selections and figuring out what finishes and materials are going to happen, but the critical phase, when we think about cabinet planning is when you get your cabinet maker to start what we call shop drawings.
Now we’re in my master bathroom right here. This is actually the wall that’s, going to have my vanity and my master, and i want to show you why, starting early with your cabinet maker to get shop, drawings is vitally important.
This is tip number one. If i have my shop drawings early, then my cabinet maker can put these really important measurements on here, which is in this case center lines for both of my sinks. Now this is the plan view, meaning the bird’s eye view here’s, the elevation, so there’s.
My two sink fronts right there and my cabinet maker has done a really nice job of fully dimensioning this. So i know exactly what to expect and it’s critical to have this completed before your trade start because number one.
My plumber needs to know exactly where those sinks are going to lay out, so he can make sure his plumbing is in the right spot. So, for instance, i use my shop drawings to say there’s. The center line of my wife’s, sink there’s, the center line for my sink, and now i know that vanity width.
So now i can ensure that my drains, my plumbing everything, is going to go correctly in there. That also means that I’ve got everything i need for electrical, which is vitally important, because sconces recessed mirrors outlets, all those things are going to be based on my cabinet layout, all right guys, busy day on the job site.
My plumbers are working on plumbing roofs, but, like i said earlier, this is the perfect time to talk about cabinets. It’s. A good segue here I’ve, got David Betts with benchmark kitchen and bath. Now David is my cabinet guy, who’s, a dealer for a cabinet maker that we’re, going to be using on this job, but we just started recently.
We’ve, actually got what one job we’ve completed already with yep crystal cabinets out of Minnesota, so we’re, going to be talking about crystal and specifically from my house, but i think a lot of what we’re going to be talking about, will translate to all pre-finished pre-made cabinets, so David, we talked about shop drawings earlier, give us a little tour of my kitchen and what these shop drawings look like sure thing.
So this is elevation c, so that’s going to be ovens over there. We got two applied panel fridges right here. There’s, an 18 inch Miele unit here that’s, the freezer the 30 inch here and then we’ve got cabinets in the middle right with countertop, and then i ‘
I’ve got a Miele wall, oven and a Miele microwave going on top of that over there, which actually segues nicely to tip number two, which is you need to choose your appliances early as you’re gonna look at these shop drawings, you’re gonna see that David customized, these shop drawings and my cabinets specifically for the appliance selections.
Now, if you’re building a kitchen that has let’s, say a 30 inch slide in range, LG, Samsung whirlpool, pretty much the same on that right. However, if you’re doing other models, if you’re, doing a drop-in cooktop, a gas of an electric, a 30 or a 36 there’s, so many options and changes.
You got to decide that to give to David. Your cabinet guy early, so when the shop drawings come out, they’re correct, so much so that i couldn’t even hold on the decision. Let’s say there’s. A lot of manufacturers of built-in 30-inch refrigerators right several doors of zero.
I could get several manufacturers, I decided on Mila and the 30-inch Miele and the 18-inch Mila freezer, which is next to it, have such specific requirements for the overlay doors for the electrical for the plumbing.
You got to choose that early. All right David keep going on the tour. What else do we have elevation wise? So this is elevation b over here we chose a custom hood from crystal, but because we’re doing uh, we wanted the tile backsplash to be the kind of focal point.
We have no uppers on either side, so we had them custom. Make that make some modifications to it. There’s, going to be a 42 inch cooktop that goes in here. The really nice thing about the Miele cooktops.
Is they’re, pretty shallow? So we’re, actually going to be able to utilize this drawer that our cad person wrote false front. But we’re, going to change that and it’s going to be functional. It would be full of spatulas and cooking tools, etc.
Then we’re, going to have pots and pans below one quick note. I was going to mention on that. This is a 36 inch base cabinet. I decided to do the 42 inch cooktop, so I’ve got the full width on there.
So we’ve got a 42 inch hood, but this base cabinet was 36 because that’s such a shallow unit, we could interfere with any of our drawers yep exactly yeah. Now the last elevation is this one where the kitchen sink is: were you walking through that one today?
So you’ve got drawers coming out this way, so necessarily by necessity, we’re, going to have a blind cabinet here there’s, a really nice pullout unit, that’s like a kidney-shaped unit. What we call the lamans, we put a note on there.
One really important thing that we want to start out. Whenever we’re, doing cabinet layouts it’s, the center of that window, that’s kind of our keystone. It’s. Everything must work off of that.
We’ve got a panel ready dishwasher right next to the sink. That’s, another very important kind of spec thing where matt was saying before you really want to get your appliances dialed in Miele, especially they’re about 5 16 narrower than a standard dishwasher.
Oh really interesting slightly narrower the panel spec on Mila is uh. It’s 23 and 7 16. Is the you know imperial conversion? Okay, so you got to really decide that earlier. If i just kind of blew past that we’d, have a 24 inch hole and then we’d.
Have these huge reveals on either side that you know we don’t want? I love it. Thank you, yeah uh. We have an end view on this previous elevation. One really nice thing about insect cabinets is that we can do a flush, inset door, and you can see that detail here.
So it’s, not going to be just a panel stuck onto the side of the cabinet. It’s, going to look like the fronts where everything is very flush. Yeah now David, we made a mock-up on the island which we’ll talk about in a minute, but talk to us through what the island’s, going to look like in the functionality of the island.
Sure thing so uh on this end, as you walk in your wife, Chrissy wanted a double two oven set up, so we’ve got the one over there, but then we have one kind of hidden down here where it’s. Not really that noticeable, but it’s kind of in the range of of where our cooktop is, and it’s, just a nice little mini triangle and just to clarify David for those of you, don’t realize this Is a pocket door? The frames coming this week, so i haven’t set that yet, but this is actually a 2 8 door.
So there’s, my door width right there, which means the rest of this panel will get filled in and the cabinets are actually coming out here. Yeah they’re, going to be cooktops right in there somewhere, but this will get walled off eventually.
So I’ll have oven microwave and then I’ll have a second oven kind of hidden underneath the island and then what other functions i have on this island David, a pair of drawer banks here the trash unit is over here.
So when you’re, you know you’re. Typically, next to your dishwasher, your sink’s here, and she’s going to be able to just swing around and the trash is right behind her on the end that’s. Another handy thing for when you’re entertaining people kind of always want to get in here and throw their stuff away.
So if it’s out at the end, that’s. Where there’s, going to be kind of a group of people, the opposite side, so we’ve got 41 inches here, a typical base cabinet is 24. The opposite side leaves us 17 inches.
So these are going to be pushed open doors, and this is going to be a kind of what they call a dummy panel on the side of the oven there. And then we’re, going to have some more push to open doors here that it’s.
You’re, not really going to be able to discern what’s a dummy panel and what’s a functional cabinet, so you’ll! Have about this much depth! Can storage cereal stuff like that? A little extra pantry and then David talk to me about this width between edge of island and edge of this bank of cabinets over here.
What do we have going on? So for you? We set up. 42. 36 is kind of the industry minimum, but you’re, really going to be kind of shimmying between people. If you do that and 42 is a good balance. If you had a huge house, we could stretch up to 48, but i think 42 is a nice middle ground where two people can definitely pass.
You know you can have two people working in here and kind of shuffling around each other makes sense, and one thing i wanted to mention too David. It’s, not obvious at this point, but i actually, with my architect kit very early on in the process, pushed this wall and lost a little bit of garage space on purpose so that i could have a bigger island.
The original design with kit. Basically had a movable island, you know rolling type island that was kind of skinny and narrow, maybe a booze block type island for a cutting board. I really like islands.
This is where people gather at parties. You’re, going to have a drink and hang out so i push this wall back two feet, which enabled me to get that 42 inches on both sides and what’s? Our island, I can’t.
Remember, like we’re 441, and so with this countertop on here, he’ll, be about 42 42 on the island, and this countertop is pretty long too, and we’ve got an overhang on the back side, too. Don’t we damn yeah to about 18.
okay. So basically my countertop will slide out that way. Have a couple barstools underneath there and then we’ve got a very nice large and functional area also gives me extra prep area, because I’ve got just a short countertop.
There. Lighting will not be great, even though there’ll be a little bit of under cabinet lighting, whereas here will be really good. Let’s, go on to our next tip David and let’s. Talk for a minute for these guys about inset versus overlay door styles, and maybe, while we’re talking about doors, we can talk about these doors that you’ve, got here sure.
So an insect cabinet will have the door flush with the frame it’s more of a traditional kind of older world detail. You see a lot of the English cabinet makers. Like plain English and Duvall kitchens that i love to follow on Instagram.
I get a lot of good inspiration for your jobs. For instance, it’s, just a more traditional look. You can have a beaded inset or just a framed inset um overlay allows a lot more kind of wiggle room for installation, time and fitment, and by overlay you mean that door is actually overlaying.
The cabinet base right and the face frame. Yes, exactly yeah and you’ve got a little more forgiveness inside we’re, going to be flush. This door has a little radius on it, but inside we’re, going to be flush from door to frame, and there’s going to be this perfect 8 inch reveal around.
This is where, on our future videos, when we talk about installation it’s, super critical, the circle is yeah, they have to be plumb and square. So, besides the uh, the look traditional versus, maybe slightly more contemporary, why would you choose inset versus overlay or vice versa? It’s, a luxury.
To be honest, you know yeah yeah, and i think you know you can you have that luxury to do that and it’s? It’s. What we were talking 15 to 20 percent up charge to do inset versus a full overlay, but it’s.
Just it’s, just such a clean crisp. Look. You know the craftsmanship absolutely has to be perfect, because you’re, going to see that black line between your door and your face frame and if things are at all canted or not perfectly plum, that door’s not fit perfectly.
You’re, going to see it, which means you’re, going to spend more as a cabinet buyer as the builder buying from the cabinet guy. Because David’s crew, not only at the factory but on the install. They need to have everything just right on the money, so it’s a it can be anywhere from 15 to maybe 25 or even higher more so, if you’re gonna spend, let’s, say twenty thousand dollars On kitchen cabinets it could be easily 25 or more thousand to go to that inside probably a good estimate, yeah.
25. 20, i mean, even if, if the cabinets cost 14 percent more as a salesperson or as a as a installer of cabinets, I’m going to know that we’re going to need to take a little more. You know put a little more TLC into that install, oh for sure.
It’s, going to take you at least a day or more longer to install that kitchen with full inset, because everything has to be perfect. Yeah, like on your on your your island, we’ve got legs that run down on the floor, so to give us kind of a furniture detail, so this will be false panels.
On the end, this panel is going to run straight to the ground and you’ll, have these furniture legs and what I’m going to do when i order these is order them a little bit long and when we come in, We’re, going to shoot a laser.
We’re, going to have that thing upside down and we’re, going to cut the legs off and flip it so that it sits level you know, so we can set up the laser measure down this side. 30, 36 and 7. 8, the sides 36 and 5 8 cut the leg, trim it and it fits right on the floor.
I love it now on that tip David, the inset versus overlay. There’s, really no clear winner. It’s. Really your decision. What you want to do, let’s. Talk for a minute, though, about my next tip, which is site finished versus pre-finished.
I’ve, been doing this 25 years. I’ve done a lot of both over the years. So have you David talk to me about the pros and cons of finishing your cabinets, on-site, or even building them and finishing them on site versus what we’re doing where crystal’s, actually painting them in the factory in the factory? They can bake this on.
They have machines that will actually measure the temperature of the surface temperature of the door. So this door goes into a conveyor belt. It’s, sprayed flat. It rotates through the oven for about 15 minutes, and then the the guy or gal at the factory can pull it out touch it.
It’s cured it’s dry to the touch it’s not going to off-gas. Nearly as much in your house and it’s, a two-part system, so they add a catalyst to it in the factory that would allow you that you can even put acetone.
You know it’s insane. How durable it is it’s very chemically resistant so now, on the flip on that, if we’re doing this on the job site, how different is that your painter’s gonna have to go down to you Know his local preferred paint place and get sometimes they’ll even have a cabinet coat is one of the brands, but this is not an industrial quality finish you know crystal has a whole set of millions and millions of dollars worth of machinery.
They’re capturing the off gases, so they can use these kind of more. You know strong finishes. Yeah more industrial style finishes. Yes, that are going to hold up over time, and the other thing that I would say on this topic uh when i first started my company, i did a lot of site finishes 15 years ago.
We see a lot of that in Austin. It’s, still pretty common to see, but one of the big frustrations for me, as a builder, was not the quality of the paint. My painter actually did an excellent job now, whether it held up for 20 years or not, is to be to be determined, but one of the big issues is when the cabinet maker was done.
The cabinets were installed, the painter has to basically take every piece of hardware off all the hinges, all the slides everything needs pulled apart for him to paint correctly, which means it all needs put back together.
So i have this beautiful kitchen that’s. All put together and working nicely and all of a sudden, every screw has got to come out and get backed out and as someone who used to do it that way, i can tell you it’s very rare that your painter is a good Cabinet guy and put it back together how you left it a couple weeks ago or you are then paying your cabinet maker to come back later and readjust everything.
Hopefully we don’t have strip screws as they got pulled in the second time. All those issues so on this tip, I’m, going to lean heavily towards factory finished crystal, makes an incredible product, but there’s.
Lots of other factory finished cabinet makers out there. I think the final point on that is: is the color matching and seeing your your door come in. You know if we want uh Milwaukee red on your cabinet doors, we shoot, we send them a tape, measure and say match the tape measure.
Typically, we’re just pulling from the Sherman Williams fan deck, but you know any of these. Colors can be custom made by them. We can option, we can alter the sheen so actually should tell them this example Dave.
This is kind of a good example, so this is your delta mill work flooring. The designer wanted your master, which is not going to have this in it. It will be tile flooring, but she wanted it to tie in so crystal.
We know that this is white oak. We told crystal give us a white oak sample door and get as close as you can to the delta of color, and i think it’s beautiful. I think they did a great walk like the wash on.
It is perfect yeah, so they sent us this sample and that’s. The match to this floor and the other thing that we can do is vary the sheen from basically almost dead flat to a pretty glossy finish generally, when you get a sample back there’s, you know the guy in the sample.
Room is going to just shoot their kind of standard. You know semi gloss on it, so this one’s, a little shinier than you’re, going gonna get it, but we have all these sheen ranges and we can pull these fans out.
These fan decks out with the different machines on them that’s five degree. We’re going to do this in 15 degree. This door that you’re looking at now is probably 33 to 40 degree sheen. So it’s, got a little bit of sheen to it, and that’s, a number that any kind of painter can work with.
You know that’s, just how the industry calls it out yeah. Now let’s. Talk expectations for a minute that’s. One of the things i like about pre-finish is that we can set everyone’s expectations early, but that also means you’ve got to make decisions really right: Rachel Paxton, my interior designer picked my delta millworks floor and my delta millwork ceiling ahead of time and then said here’s. What I’m thinking about David, give me a sample of this color from Sherwin-Williams fan deck, this color from a fan, deck or match this image.
For this walnut, David, then was able to give me the samples and go all right here’s. What we’re doing, do you like this? Yes approved or no I want to make this change should be done early because it could be a two-week turn time between.
I hated every one of your samples that you gave me let’s start over, you know, so it can. You know it’s, another good point for starting early and the other reason to do. That, too, is because i need to know my exact measurements.
I’ve got nine foot ceilings in my kitchen. Here I’ve got a crown molding at the top, but everything especially my floor-to-ceiling cabinets, i don’t, have a lot of wiggle room, so i needed to be able to tell David from my three-quarter subfloor.
This is actually my top of floor and by the way i typically will install this prior to him installing cabinets. So i don’t need extra, scribe, moldings and then my wood ceiling, of which i have a mock-up on over there will be actually be on the ceiling as well, so that when David puts his pre-finished crown molding on it’s.
Already on my pre-finished ceiling, there’s, nothing left to do there, we measure. Now we sub that out. We check our the the cabinet company will give you the exact position of the of the crown in height, and it will say you know.
Maybe it’s, five inches when it’s sitting here flat, but when it’s up it’s three and a quarter that’s right. So we factor that in your uh, your typical inset face frame is uh. It’s an inch and a quarter here, and we’re, going to shoot for that same line along the ceiling, and you’re, going to give me a little bit of fudge room because your ceiling may not be Perfectly level, but it gives us another enough, wiggle room where we’re.
Not I’ve, seen plenty of inset installs, where the crown is pinched on the door where it wasn’t quite right and David just to brag. On you, for a minute, these shop drawings are absolutely fantastic. At the beginning of the video, I showed people how i use these for center lines.
Let me show you one more thing: before we go into our last tip David, I’ll, be right back. This is my wife’s desk area, and i actually have a laundry room space over here and pantry over here. What i typically do, as a builder, is I’ll, take the cabinet makers, shop drawings.
I’ll tack them up in the space. So if trades have a question – and I’m at lunch or whatever we can make sure we know what’s going on, and in this case this was a late breaking change. My interior designer took the original design from the architect, took my wife’s, input and said.
No, i want to do something different. She gave David a sketch on a different layout. Then David gave us this shop, drawing which then allowed me to change the electrical layout and that’s. What you can see here is me going all right inside this cabinet.
I need my Dyson. This is the knee space for the desk. I need an outlet in there for the computer. I need a couple desktop outlets and then this door here is going to house a rollout printer. So we need an outlet in the back.
So now, when my electrician’s on site, you can see all those boxes here. He just started wiring those that process works really well now, if we had a higher budget like a lot of times, my jobs are where there’s.
A architect who’s got lots of time uh ahead of time. You know if I’m working with ultra studios or if I’m working with David Webber or with Tim Cuppet. They’ve spent a lot more time ahead of time in design and, frankly, more money from the clients to verify those things.
But most of my jobs or my personal house, we’re, going back and forth a little bit with the cabinet maker on the job to figure that out so great job on all that David last tip David. That i want to talk about is mock-ups on the job.
Tell me what uh we built here, this wasn’t you. This is actually Andrew, who built this yeah, your guy Andrew built this island. This is the exact size that your crystal island was predetermined to be, and so now you can come in here with your wife and do a walk through you are going to further.
Do the lowers yeah after i saw this, I’ll be honest David. I thought you know wonder if this is going to feel too big. So I’m going to have Andrew make me a little mock-up of the kitchen sink cabinet.
You know 24 inches deep. My cabinets are 37 and three-quarters. The finish height on countertops, I want to see what that distance looks like. I also want to kind of mock up what my door swing looks like on my refrigerator, make sure I’ve got plenty of room because it’s, not too late for us to shrink this island an inch or two or three. If you could walk past this big door, while it’s open, that would be that’d. Be nice ideal yeah, so we’ll.
Look at that! It’s, not too late for us to do that. However, we did place the order already for these cabinets and you’ll notice. We’re still in the rough end stage, and yet my cabinets are on order really critical to think about this ahead of time Dave.
What else did i miss anything that, as we talked that we didn’t miss or that we didn’t talk about? No, I think we’re good. I think uh for someone who’s gonna. Do this, i think it is very important that if you can mock it up in foam, do it.
You know if you have the time it’s, a couple hundred dollars worth of pink foam from home depot and some tape and it’s super easy to cut, and you just make boxes and uh. You can kind of walk around and i think you were a little bit.
You know seeing this here in person. We were all like wow, okay, that’s, that’s, something so we have the chance. Now the order’s been placed, but it’s, not in production. Yet, and so you know, we have a couple weeks where we can say let’s, pull two inches out of this.
You know we lose it from the storage on this side. No big deal, you know the last thing i want to mention this mock-up too. That i forgot to mention was i’ve got some pendant lights. I’ve got two that are going to come down and light the space, and i already know what those are we’ve selected, those but figuring out the height and the location on the island would be really nice.
So I’m, going to have Andrew make me a fake light hanging from the ceiling, and that way we can verify where those junction boxes are and a great way to do. That is to you, find the center of the island shoot a laser on it.
It’s right up on the ceiling you’re marked out you’re good. Those plumbing lasers are so easy to use learned that from a video years years ago, they’re, really setting windows David. Thank you for the help, if you guys are uh interested in following David on Instagram or seeing his work.
If you’re in Austin, I’ll, put a link to him in the description crystal of which David is a dealer sells nationwide. They have a great dealer network. I’ll, put a link to those guys in the description and David.
If you’re willing, I’d love to have you come back and show me some tips on install when we actually get these. These will probably come in uh some of the march time frame. I would assume so we could show these guys the finishes, but really talk about how to get a really good and detailed install.
Absolutely i can’t wait. I love it guys if you’re, not currently a subscriber hit that subscribe button below we’ve got new content every Tuesday and every Friday follow me on twitter Instagram.
Otherwise, we’ll see you next time on the build show. [ Music ]
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