| Project by Lee A. Jesberger | posted 494 days ago | 770 views | 4 times favorited | 22 comments | ![]() |
We often do kitchens. Sometimes they are very challenging. Sometimes they are easy. This was an easy one, except the client, (wife), didn’t know what she wanted. Compounding the problem, both the husband and wife are Greek, and weren’t comfortable with their english.
My wife is Greek also, so I took her with me to translate. When I could get the women to stop talking about who knows what, I was able to get some details.
It ended up with her letting us do pretty much whatever we wanted, so long as the wood was a light color, and we stayed within her budget.
We cut the wall between the dining room and kitchen and installed a breakfast counter, with cabinet below. This made the kitchen appear to be twice as big.
The cabinets are European style, meaning no face frames. The advantage of this is they allow larger access to the interiors of the cabinets.
All the cabinet box parts are 3/4 inch furniture grade maple plywood. The upper cabinets have low voltage task lighting mounted to the underside of them. (we build a light rail on the bottom of our upper cabinets, to hide the lights).
All of the doors are built with matching face veneers, as are the back panels, under the breakfast bar.
While they look like raised panel doors, they’re not. The panels are 1/4 inch Maple plywood, with the edges edge banded, mounted to 1/4 inch maple plywood. All the stiles and rails are maple.
We were fortunate that the sheets of plywood were matched, so we took advantage of that. I can’t remember exactly how we attached the panels together, but it’s been about ten years, so I guess we did it well. (maybe it was 16 penny nails, bent over on the inside) LOL
The refrigerater cabinet was built for a smaller frige, due the small size of the room, but they went and bought a larger one, so the fit is kind of tight.
The base of the phone stand next to the frige has a vent routed into it for the heat register. We also strayed from the normal soffit so we could put accent lights above each cabinet door.
We also replaced the trim around the doors and window with maple, as well as trimmed out the opening we created.
The countertops are granite.
They turned out to be a very nice couple, and were very happy with the new kitchen.
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
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22 comments so far
MsDebbieP
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12284 posts in 701 days
posted 494 days ago
hahaha laughin’ at the Greek translator getting side tracked :)
beautiful kitchen.
-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)
Roger Strautman
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506 posts in 674 days
posted 494 days ago
Lee, I liked the idea of using the wooden soffit for the lighting. It kinda made the cabinets because without it they would just be cabinets. Thanks for sharing!
-- " All Things At First Appear Difficult"
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 494 days ago
Hi Debbie,
Yeah, go figure.
Thanks.
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 494 days ago
Hi Roger;
Agreed, they make it different.
Thanks;
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
TomFran
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2371 posts in 534 days
posted 494 days ago
Lee,
It’s always a pleasure to view your work – you are truly a gifted craftsman!
-- Tom, Surfside Beach, SC - Romans 8:28
oscorner
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4573 posts in 851 days
posted 494 days ago
Nice work!
-- Jesus is Lord!
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 493 days ago
Tom, thank you for the kind words.
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 493 days ago
Thank You Os!
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
Karson
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14326 posts in 941 days
posted 493 days ago
Lee another great project. You use these between the fill-in for the big jobs.
-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 493 days ago
Karson,
We do a fair amount of projects that are small. Just stay busy, that’s the plan.
There are times when smaller jobs are kind of nice.
Thanks for the kind words,
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
mot
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4863 posts in 576 days
posted 492 days ago
Up to your usual exemplary standard, Lee! Thanks for posting this!
-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)
Thos. Angle
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3448 posts in 502 days
posted 492 days ago
Yeah, I’m gone for a couple days and you start posting projects. Well, there is something great about a nice clean well done set of cabinets. My son-in-law and I were really pround not long ago when we finished a counter top with all perfect corners. The rest of it looked great but we were proud of the corners!! This kitchen is a great example of how simple and well done can be just great!!! thanks for the look, Lee.
-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 492 days ago
Hi Tom;
I thank you;
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 492 days ago
Hi Thomas;
Thank you for the kind words;
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
john
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818 posts in 922 days
posted 241 days ago
Thats funny i married a greek woman too . lol My kids are greek , swiss and Irish
Beautiful work Lee !!
-- John in Cranbrook http://www.extremebirdhouse.com ....http://community.webshots.com/user/cranbrook2
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 241 days ago
Hey John;
That’s funny! I’ll bet the kids are confused.LOL
When I was single, I had several “life rules”
1. My experience with Greek clients left me with a bad taste in my mouth about Greek people.
2. I would never get involved with a women with children. (as a stepchild myself, I didn’t want to be involved in that again).
3. I liked petite, feminine women.
So I married a Greek women with two kids and who can beat me up! Go figure!
So far so good though. And the step kids are as close to me as our son. My stepdaughter is one of my favorite people in the world, my stepson works with me, and I’m proud of him, and my wife can still beat me up!
It’s perfect!
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
suliman
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233 posts in 344 days
posted 152 days ago
Ihad mad the same disgine when Ibeen in Cyprus
NICE LOOKING
-- Suliman , Syria, jablah ,
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 152 days ago
Hi Suliman;
Small world huh?
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
Grumpy
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6735 posts in 391 days
posted 149 days ago
As usual, a job well done Lee.
-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 149 days ago
Hey Grumpy;
Thank you for the kind words.
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com
mmh
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312 posts in 262 days
posted 46 days ago
Very nice kitchen! Our cabinets are also made from plywood but they don’t look as uniform because we liked the irregular grain. We did not panel our doors so they don’t look as professional, but the work. Someday we may redo them but there’s so many other projects to do. I did all of the tiling and helped put the floor in. Your granite is beautiful and I’m sure it was a challenge to install it. You must have had lots of beefy helpers. Again, VERY nice!
-- "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." ~ Edgar Allan Poe
Lee A. Jesberger
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2898 posts in 520 days
posted 46 days ago
Hi mmh;
Thank you for your comments. The granite on this project was done by a subcontractor. When I did the granite in my own kitchen, I carried the pieces from my truck to the kitchen, and then installed them.
Impatient to see what it would look like. The largest piece is about 8 feet long, and was heavy as a *.
The “L” shaped piece by the stove was pretty tough too, since the back edge is about 4 feet long in both directions.
Do you think this has anything to do with my back hurting all the time? LOL
Lee
-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com