Expert: Jamie Yocono - 1/3/2005

Question
Hi Jamie / I'm going to bet that over the years you have met more than one knucklehead who looked at the prices of well constructed kitchen cabinetry and said,..."why, I can build it myself for a 1/3 of the price that they want!"
Well, add my name to the list..............
While I have never built a cabinet before, I HAVE built my own home, so I assume I qualify as a non-knucklehead,...technically anyway!  I have ordered a few how-to books, and I have a table saw and router and planer, so why not?
Any suggestions on connection techniques, materials, tools, etc. that you haved learned over the years and would be willing to share would be MUCH appreciated. AS I mentioned, I'm new to this game, so set me straight!

Thanks / Mark

Answer
Hi Mark,

Wow- this turned into a long answer, so grab a cup of coffee and put your feet up!

Although making kitchen cabinets is a difficult undertaking, it's certainly a project that is doable for people who have basic tools and some skills. In fact, 20 years ago, I built my first kitchen with the exact tools you mentioned, so I know it's possible.

There are 2 books that I consider to be the best on this subject, and I recommend that you try to find a copy of each one. I have seen them on eBay, so perhaps you can save some money and buy them there if you can't find them at your local Borders or Barnes and Noble.

Basically, there are 2 kinds of kitchen cabinets, face frame cabinetry and frame-less cabinetry. The face frame cabinets are the traditional cabinets what have a 1 x 2 face frame that is applied to the plywood box of a cabinet. Frameless are more modern and do not have 1 x 2 frames. They use a better hinge which is fully adjustable, which is often a problem area for traditional cabinets.

Anyway, the 2 books that I recommend are books on each different style of cabinetry.  The first is Making Kitchen Cabinets by Paul Levine, and Building Your Own Kitchen Cabinets (Layout, materials, construction, installation) by Jere Cary.

Both books are published by Taunton Press, which is the home of Fine Homebuilding magazine. A few years back, there was a great article about building kitchen cabinets on a budget in their magazine. Anyway, you might want to do an index search and try to locate that article, it would be worth your time.

My choice for the better of the two books is Paul Levine's book. His style is simple, versatile, and you can build his designs with a minimum of tools. The design is modern looking and easy to customize. The other book by Cary features more traditional cabinets, ones with 1 x 2 face frames like you see in so many older homes. It just depends on you- what will look good in your home, what your home is like. A modern home would want the European style, an older home would probably support the more traditional style cabinets.

Next thing to think about- making kitchen cabinets isn't really a difficult thing, but it's certainly time consuming. You can break it down into 5 areas-

Making the cabinet boxes
Take out the old stuff (counter top and cabinet boxes)
Install the new cabinet boxes
Make/Hang doors and drawers
Install countertop

As I've gotten more specialized in my work, I subcontract out some of the stuff I don't want to do. There are some good companies out there that do nothing but specialize in cabinet boxes, or in doors and drawers. Or countertops. So there's always the opportunity for you to do some of the grunt work (take out the old stuff) and let someone else do the stuff that really matters, like the countertop.

Here are my thoughts about it- it's quite easy to build the cabinet boxes. These are usually built in set dimensions, like 24", 30", 36" or whatever. So you can make the boxes yourself, while your kitchen is still intact.  Demolition is easy too, so you can do that. Even the drawer making and hanging is a job that most modest woodworkers could handle, so I would do that, too.

But the "money" part, or the part of the cabinets that really make or break the job are the door/drawer faces, and the countertop. Heck, Home depot just had a sale on granite countertops that was really reasonable, so you could sub that part out to them. And there are some great door/drawer face companies out there that you could buy your stuff from. I would recommend a company, but I don't know which side of the country you're on.

Anyway- THIS IS IMPORTANT- you need to thoroughly understand how kitchen cabinets go together, how the spacing and layout affects the door/drawer layout, and how the toe-kick stuff works. So you really need to read up on it, and then decide which parts you want to tackle.

Just a thought about doors/drawers. I just finished a small laundry room cabinet job which required 14 doors. I was planning on making them myself, but thought I would check with my door company. As it turned out, they were a little slow (business wise) and could make them in about 2 weeks, and the cost was much cheaper than I would have been able to make them for, an average of about $50 a door for solid cherry doors. So outsourcing your doors is WISE and is the part that will make your work looks great, even if you know there are some mistakes here and there.

Good luck, I hope this helps. Feel free to write back with any other questions you might have after reading this.

Jamie Yocono
Wood It Is! Custom Cabinetry
Las Vegas, NV