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Small kitchen remodel

Project by Lee A. Jesberger posted 494 days ago 770 views 4 times favorited 22 comments Add to Favorites
Small kitchen remodel Small kitchen remodel Small kitchen remodel Click the pictures to enlarge them

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


22 comments so far

View MsDebbieP's profile (online now)

MsDebbieP

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)

View Roger Strautman's profile

Roger Strautman

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"

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View TomFran's profile

TomFran

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

View oscorner's profile

oscorner

4573 posts in 851 days


posted 494 days ago

Nice work!

-- Jesus is Lord!

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View Karson's profile

Karson

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 †

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View mot's profile

mot

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)

View Thos. Angle's profile

Thos. Angle

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

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View john's profile (online now)

john

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

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View suliman's profile

suliman

233 posts in 344 days


posted 152 days ago

Ihad mad the same disgine when Ibeen in Cyprus
NICE LOOKING

-- Suliman , Syria, jablah ,

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View Grumpy's profile

Grumpy

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

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

View mmh's profile (online now)

mmh

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

View Lee A. Jesberger's profile

Lee A. Jesberger

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

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