Kitchen Remodel #1: Buffet and Hutch

My wife says I can’t do anything else before I start on her Kitchen. Well except for her hall table and ??. Of course there is also the Summer Contest.

This is going to be a multiple phase project. I need to do something with the floor. We are on a cement slab floor and it is killing both of our legs. The kitchen had a Pergo floor when we bought the house, but we had a frozen water line before we moved in and the Pergo floor got curled edges, so it was all pulled up.

I don’t’ think I want 3/8” inch flooring and I’m leaning to solid hardwood 3/4” thick. Either on the cement or over a spacer board underneath. I don’t know what I’ll do yet. I’m still researching.

So in the interim I going to start to build a couple of furniture pieces that will be in the kitchen.

The first is a Buffet / Hutch. This is from Fine Woodworking Jan / Feb of 2007. I don’t plan on making this exact design. I don’t know if we will have glass in the upper cabinet. I want all drawers on the bottom not cabinet doors. But, the construction details are fairly solid.
. I'm starting to draw the full size legs with all of the mortise for the styles and rails. They used 1/2" plywood for the sides and backs, but I'll probably go with 3/4 and put some burl cherry veneer on it. The wood will be cherry. I'll get to use the 19" cherry board for the Buffet top surface. I'll have to glue on a 1 1/2" piece at the back to make it 21 1/2. Of course my planer is only 20" wide so I'll have to finish up the joint with a hand plane or scraper.

I plan to take down a wall that is beside the refrigerator to make it an "L" shaped kitchen. There is no dining room so it is an eat-in-kitchen. The previous owner took down a half-wall between the kitchen area and the eating area.

I plan to build a couple of furniture items 1) The Buffet and 2) A storage pantry for all of the can goods.

The floor area is approx 400 Sq Ft. after I take out the wall.

I'm waiting for a woodworker club member to finish assembling a pantry cabinet that he is building for a commission. I want to show it to my wife. She is not good at visualizing without pictures or actual items.

She wants the kitchen light, but I'm going to sneak in this Cherry Buffet while the color is still light and then let it age in her kitchen.

She's happy with Dave's Cherry Thorsen Table. So it might be a good match. When i start working on the rest of the cabinets we'll see what the wood becomes, and also the floor.

Any suggestions or pictures of a storage pantry would be nice if you have some.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com