If you’ve been following along with out blog lately, you know that we’re knee deep into our home office renovation. This project has taken us the better part of nine months and we’re finally a couple weeks away from putting it to bed. I’m in the middle of assembling our new built-in cabinets that we are making from scratch and while I definitely enjoy the process, I’m already looking forward to installing them and being finished with this part of the project.
In this post, I wanted to discuss cabinet building challenges. It’s not all gumdrops, folks.
It seems as though every time I take on a new project, all I tend to think about are the positive outcomes that lay before us. With this project for example, I’m looking forward to having a professional, custom looking home office that we can decorate and organize. I never really think too much about how many evenings I’ll be spending in the basement toiling away on my table saw and router. I always underestimate how many trips to Lowes or Home Depot I’ll have logged by the time we call the project complete. Consequently, I tend to write wrap-up or recap posts when I’m basking in the after glow of a completed project and I rarely write posts when I’m in the thick of it. In my mind, the net outcome always outweighs the time and monetary investment of doing it yourself.
I feel very empowered by being capable of taking raw lumber and plywood and building something substantial out of it. This is my ‘thing.’ I’m not good at sports, I don’t have any other real hobbies. This is IT. One of the main reasons I blog is to teach what I’ve learned so you can do these same things for you and yours. It’s nice to have a deep home improvement skill set. This constant-positive thinking however, can cause you to forget the bumps on the road. It can cause you to overload your plate with home improvement projects. It can get you in over your head and it can lead to you getting sick of it.
That’s what brings me around to the reason for this post. I’ve spend the better part of ten hours in the shop the last couple of days and I’m full of a different kind of insight. One that doesn’t point out all the net gains and the sunshine. This is the kind of insight that will remind you to stock up on bandaids. The kind that if I wait another day or two to write, I’ll probably forget. Building your own furniture, while rewarding in numerous ways is a mixed bag. It’s up to you to determine if it’s worth your effort. I’ve built well over a dozen cabinets for my first house and for our current home and I’ll probably build a couple dozen more. These aggravations won’t stop me, but they will entice me to improve my build process for the next go around so I don’t repeat them.
Here are 6 Cabinet Building Challenges that I’m Working Through Right Now
1. This work is dirty and dusty. I always seem to forget what a half an inch of sawdust looks like on the shop floor. It gets into EVERYTHING! #SawdustInAllThePlaces and it’s not nearly as funny as “David Tennant in places he shouldn’t be.” I don’t have a proper dust collection system right now, so I typically end up cleaning up the entire space once I’ve completely wrapped up. So it’s dirty? So what? It’s really not that big of a deal except for the fact that I need to shower after every time I work in the shop. Not a major pain, but a pain nonetheless.
2. Splinters. You can tell when I’m working on a new cabinet build by the number of bandaids on my fingers. Right now there are two. For some reason, my hands are magnets for splinters. I mostly get them from plywood. Word of advice: try not to let the plywood slide through your hands while you’re moving it. Doesn’t end well for your digits. When I built the cabinets for my first house, I had a splinter in my finger for weeks and didn’t know it.
3. All the parts. Cabinets have face frames, plywood boxes, braces, drawer fronts, drawers, doors, door hinges, door stops, drawer slides, counters, edging, knobs, pulls, etc. Simple stuff, but it ends up being a lot of parts to cut out and track. If you don’t buy them all up front then you end up purchasing them incrementally, which is what I usually do. I recommend you buy absolutely everything you need for each job before you get started, otherwise you end up just wasting time making those separate trips.
4. It’s still not cheap. When all is said and done I’ll have saved a fair amount of money over purchasing comparable cabinets and having them installed professionally. Can I find cabinets that look similar? Maybe. Can I find inexpensive cabinets? Sure. Can I find inexpensive, perfectly sized for my room, custom looking, beaded face frame and inset door cabinets for less than I’m paying in materials? No freaking way. If I were to hand over my cabinet specs over to a cabinet shop and ask them to build me the exact same thing I’m building now, I’d be paying over $2000 easy. Probably closer to $3k or $4k. That doesn’t mean by building these cabinets myself I’m not spending anything. I’ll probably end up spending close to $800 on lumber and plywood. That’s not zero. Plus, I always end up trying out new tools or investing in upgrades. For this build, I bought three new router bits. That’s just the material cost. There IS some value to spending time in the basement two or three nights a week. That’s time away from my family and time I could be doing other productive work or just relaxing. Plus, I already own almost all of the tools I need for the job, but if you don’t, those startup costs ain’t cheap. So you need to consider all the “costs” associated with every job you undertake.
5. It ALWAYS takes longer. Much, much longer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told my wife that I’ve only got a couple more hours and I’ll be all done. You can imagine how well that goes after the 2nd or 3rd time. Getting an accurate feel for how long a cabinet will last takes experience and even then it’s hard to gauge when life gets in the way. Plan on it taking some time and then add another couple weeks.
6. Material Sourcing. This is my latest aggravation and I am swearing that this time I’ll learn from it. I’m am DONE with buying S4S lumber from Home Depot and Lowes (at least for big projects). I’m SO sick of standing there in the lumber aisle and picking out board after board that is warped, curved or cupped. From now on I’m buying rough cut hardwood from a lumber yard and planing and jointing it myself. Just a couple of days ago I was looking for some 1/2″ thick maple for the drawers. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I should’ve sourced all my lumber up front and then I wouldn’t be sitting pretty. Instead, I’m using some 1/2″ thick Birch plywood and I’ll use some edge veneer.
So those are some of the aggravations of building your own cabinets. It’s still TOTALLY worth it, people. Totally. Pretty soon I’ll be sitting in my new office with my feet up on the desk basking in the warm glow of custom cabinetry. My splinters will all be healed and I’ll be thinking about my next project… Yep. Couple more hours and I’ll be done. 😉
Now I want to hear from you. What is the ABSOLUTE WORST part of your DIY life? It’s OK to complain once in a while.
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