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Below 265 SQ/FT Legenddc's Shop

All workspaces below 265 squarefeet.

nicholam77

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Looking forward to that build!

Seems like a functional layout and I think you have the desk in the best spot.

After visiting a friend a couple of years ago we were struck with some inspiration that we needed to find a way to make this room multi-purpose but weren't quite sure what to do with it until recently.
Let's make another kitchen table area where the kids can do homework, play games, draw, read, or whatever that will allow us to not have to clear off the real kitchen table to eat.

Those are the best kind of remodels, that actually serve a practical purpose and improve the way you live in the house. And more concealed storage is always good IMO.

If you really wanted to extend a built-in look, you could even make your own L-shaped banquet that ties into the cabinet (painted same color, maybe floating / wall-mounted), and get some cushions made. Obviously that's some scope creep for ya and I know you already bought one but just throwing it out there.
 
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legenddc

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Those are the best kind of remodels, that actually serve a practical purpose and improve the way you live in the house. And more concealed storage is always good IMO.

If you really wanted to extend a built-in look, you could even make your own L-shaped banquet that ties into the cabinet (painted same color, maybe floating / wall-mounted), and get some cushions made. Obviously that's some scope creep for ya and I know you already bought one but just throwing it out there.
We discussed making the banquet but decided we wanted it to be more open. If the current banquet doesn't hold up I'm sure we'll go down that route.

Really looking forward to all of the hidden storage this adds. It should hopefully alleviate a couple of other storage areas that have too much stuff or things stored poorly.
 

jar944

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a small setback and then cabinets with doors on top. We're thinking now that the top will have doors as well. That cabinet might have to be a bit shallower.
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Nice. I've done a few full height "hutch" like cabinets like that in my house. Lots of space and it gives a more custom/built in look compared to base/uppers or full height pantry cabinets.

Do you know what countertop materal you want for the strip?
 
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legenddc

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Nice. I've done a few full height "hutch" like cabinets like that in my house. Lots of space and it gives a more custom/built in look compared to base/uppers or full height pantry cabinets.

Do you know what countertop materal you want for the strip?
I'm really looking forward to all the storage. We still need to figure out what exactly we want to store where as that may change drawer heights.

The countertop material is most likely going to be painted wood. I've proposed a traditional countertop material or a piece of walnut but currently my wife just wants it painted.

Will still be time to change our minds. Due to the small size of my shop I'm going to build the base first and install it before I start working on the top hutch.

Any tips besides the usual for inset drawers and doors? I've been rereading your thread looking for tips.
 

jar944

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Any tips besides the usual for inset drawers and doors? I've been rereading your thread looking for tips.

Not really any tips specifically for that style of cabinet.

I do like slightly deeper hutch sections compared to a normal 12" cabinet for increased storage. The one in my kitchen is 16" deep on the upper and 20" deep on the lower.
 
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legenddc

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Not really any tips specifically for that style of cabinet.

I do like slightly deeper hutch sections compared to a normal 12" cabinet for increased storage. The one in my kitchen is 16" deep on the upper and 20" deep on the lower.
I think we're going to have the upper deeper than the standard 12". I was hoping to stick our printer in the upper but that needs at least a 17-18" deep upper. Too deep with the lower would make it hard to get into the bench. Will probably mock something to figure out the right depth for the lower.

I spent some time last night drawing up the front of the cabinet. We're going to think about what we want to store in it for a little before committing to anything.
 
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legenddc

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Last weekend we went to our first cars and coffee of the year. After I attempted to clean up our garden with the intention of putting out mulch. I had no energy and was getting wore out after taking breaks quicker and quicker. Ended up having a fever and missing Easter as I didn't want to get two pregnant people sick or my parents who were leaving on a 2 week trip soon. They're currently stuck in Spain and Portugal without power and water and limited cell service. While sick in bed I picked up some Collins Tools miter clamps used on eBay.

I did have enough mental capacity to figure out the final dimensions and materials needed for the cabinets. Then I watched another video and changed my mind. Reading through @jar944 's thread again helped me figure out the face frame reveal so now I just need to figure out how to mount the Blum drawer slides on a cabinet with a face frame and inset drawers. Will likely just make 3mm shims for the drawers.

This weekend I finished making 4 different coffee scoops for Mother's Day. My super-secret method to getting handmade presents done ahead of time is to aim for them to be done the holiday before. I bought these kits back in December for Christmas but without a lathe chuck and apparently a live cone center it was going to be very difficult to make.

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Hoping this week to get the mulch put out and our deck power washed this weekend if the weather cooperates. I need to go to my parent's house and make sure it starts first.
 
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legenddc

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Friday I rented a U-Haul and picked up my plywood and 50 bd ft of maple. It’s now taking up half my basement. Between other errands I only got an hour working in the shop to mill up some maple for face frames.

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I got sick of trying to zoom in on the Blum catalog on the computer and ordered a catalog. Didn’t expect a 3 ring binder with 500 pages to come.
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Finished getting our mulch out and did my neighbors mulch since she wasn’t able to find someone to hire. Got to keep her happy so she doesn’t complain about the noise from the tools.
 
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legenddc

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Office Built-in Cabinets Part I

Not a whole lot of progress to report but I have made some headway. Here's my drawing of what we've decided to make. Some of those dimensions have changed slightly, but close enough.

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I generally try not to joint and plane boards after the kids go to bed (around 8:30) and stop all noise making activity at 10:00. I did spend a couple of lunch breaks in the shop to mill up some boards for the lower cabinet face frame. My daughter joined me in the shop one evening to drill some pocket holes and helped me attach some of the pieces together. Since my table saw is the most flat surface in my shop I've been using it to clamp everything down before driving the pocket screws and making sure everything stays square.
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Had to bring it upstairs to see how it looked in the room. Too much clutter in there now to get a picture, but it fits with a little room to spare. I haven't attached the face frame on the right side yet but the parts are made.

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The hardware arrived on Wednesday this week. I was able to find handles that match our kitchen ones so it should tie in well. With the hardware on hand I've now been able to confirm the height lost for the Blum undermount slides. I believe I can make the lowest drawer an inch shorter and give some more space to the middle one. Will likely need to make a mock drawer to confirm how deep the cabinet needs to be with the inset drawers.
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Using a scrap door stile test piece from a previous project and a small cutoff from the face frame, I tested the fit of the hinges. It appears I ordered the correct hinges and plates and have the correct face frame offset. Thankfully @jar944 had some great details in his kitchen build so I was able to get it correct the first time.
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Hopefully I can get some milling done tomorrow but errands and Mother's Day will likely take up the majority of my weekend.
 

nicholam77

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This weekend I finished making 4 different coffee scoops for Mother's Day. My super-secret method to getting handmade presents done ahead of time is to aim for them to be done the holiday before. I bought these kits back in December for Christmas but without a lathe chuck and apparently a live cone center it was going to be very difficult to make.

IMG_7310.jpeg

Those are awesome!!

I got sick of trying to zoom in on the Blum catalog on the computer and ordered a catalog. Didn’t expect a 3 ring binder with 500 pages to come.
IMG_7323.jpeg

Damn! Blum documentation always makes my brain hurt. But is it weird that I kind of want one of these? That binder is thicc.

Between other errands I only got an hour working in the shop to mill up some maple for face frames.

Nice job on the face frames (y)

Even with only an hour of shop time it seems you've gotten a lot done. Big pieces with lots of hardware, drawers, doors, takes lots of planning. Sometimes I feel like just getting started is the hardest part.
 
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legenddc

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Office Built-in Cabinets Part II

I've been pretty horrible at taking pictures over the last few weeks of working on these cabinets. I finished the upper face frame shortly after my last post. I tried my best to take my time and make sure everything was clamped square before I installed the pocket hole screws.
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Somehow I neglected to take a picture when I finished the upper frame but you can sort of make it out here in the hallway to our laundry room.
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Also if you look closely you can see a decent bit of the maple boards have been cut to rough size and milled up some. I'm definitely not working on this in the most efficient way possible but instead trying to balance when things are worked on based on noise or my attention span. There are a lot of parts in this project and I don't want to lose track of what I've done. So far I've rough milled 32 of the 56 parts needed for the doors and drawers, starting with the longest and working my way down.

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At this point I got tired of surfacing lumber and decided to work on the cases. Having the other half of my basement unusable, storing plywood also helped guide that choice. My dad was kind enough to print this square for his track saw. It works okay to get you close but not perfect.
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In case you're curious how one breaks down 4'x8' sheets of plywood in a 12'x14' shop, the answer is carefully and without much wiggle room.

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The base cabinets and toe kick are assembled and went together fairly smoothly. There seems to be no shortage of ways to assemble cabinets as shown in the 8 million YouTube videos. I've been using narrow crown staples to assemble it all and then coming back to pre-drill the holes and then drive some screws. Been using my stash of 1 3/4" screws that don't fit in my storage cases hoping to get rid of the box. For the lower cabinets I'm using all 3/4" unfinished plywood as you'll never see it and I'm not sure how I'm attaching the drawer slides yet.

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This week I've spent my time breaking down the pre-finished plywood for the middle and upper cabinets. I've cut everything to size, first rough size with the track saw and then final with the table saw. Also made the grooves for the 1/4" pre-finished back, drilled the pocket holes to attach the face frame to the cabinet and finally, tonight I spent about an hour drilling shelf pin holes.

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Thankfully this week it's been uncharacteristically cool so I've been able to keep the window in the shop open with a box fan to help clear dust out while I'm working. Hoping to cut the backs and assemble the middle and upper cabinets this weekend but I think the weather may finally cooperate and allow me to power wash our deck.

At some point I also need to sand the face frames and get them ready for paint. The upper will need to be sanded outside as it's too big to easily move around my shop.
 
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legenddc

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Saturday started off with a trip to cars and coffee with the whole family. Couldn’t stay too long but a nice way to start the day.

When we got home I started clearing off the deck and power washing. It was supposed to be a nice clear day but it ended up raining 3 times, one of which came with a severe thunderstorm warning. Next time I need to get a slightly longer wand and I might just do half the deck at a time so we don't have to move everything off.
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Sunday my 7 year old son said he wanted to power wash the front sidewalk. I pulled out the electric power washer and the round sidewalk attachment so he wouldn't do any damage. I think he made it two squares before he got bored and I had to finish.
 
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legenddc

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Office Built-in Cabinets Part III

Was able to get some work done on Sunday and Monday on these cabinets. Started with a stack of parts:
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And started assembling.
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Smarter people than I will realize the top stretcher shouldn't be all the way at the top but instead 3/4" down. Since it was stapled in I ended up using a jigsaw to cut that stretcher down some.
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Not pretty but it worked
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By the time Monday evening rolled around I was left with this temporarily set up in my basement just outside of the shop.
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It's very clear that I will never become a professional cabinet maker. The amount of times I put the stretchers in the wrong place or the top/side parts the opposite way had me questioning my mental acuity. I should have cleaned up my shop more and moved the table saw out so I could have set a cabinet up in advance of assembling it. At least I managed to get the side parts correct so the shelf-pin holes are all aligned.

With school ending and a vacation or work trip scheduled every-other week from now until mid-July, work on this cabinet will slow down after next week. I'm not sure if I should work on the drawer boxes or doors/drawer fronts first. Something to think about while I sand the face frame. I don't think I need to sand too high as it's getting painted.

I've been super pleased with my Milwaukee M12 installation drill. All on the same 2.0 ah battery I drilled 200 shelf pin holes and over 200 1 3/4" or 1 1/4" pocket screws in pre-drilled holes and it still has one bar left.
 

bj383ss

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TX
Office Built-in Cabinets Part III

Was able to get some work done on Sunday and Monday on these cabinets. Started with a stack of parts:
IMG_7460.jpeg

And started assembling.
IMG_7461.jpeg

Smarter people than I will realize the top stretcher shouldn't be all the way at the top but instead 3/4" down. Since it was stapled in I ended up using a jigsaw to cut that stretcher down some.
IMG_7462.jpeg

Not pretty but it worked
IMG_7463.jpeg

IMG_7464.jpeg

By the time Monday evening rolled around I was left with this temporarily set up in my basement just outside of the shop.
IMG_7466.jpeg

It's very clear that I will never become a professional cabinet maker. The amount of times I put the stretchers in the wrong place or the top/side parts the opposite way had me questioning my mental acuity. I should have cleaned up my shop more and moved the table saw out so I could have set a cabinet up in advance of assembling it. At least I managed to get the side parts correct so the shelf-pin holes are all aligned.
This is the very reason I over label all my parts and have a second thought on nearly everything before I cut or start to glue something. Also dry fit run on everything as well helps to eliminate some mistakes on my part.

Cabinet is looking nice.

Bret
 
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legenddc

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As predicted, progress on the cabinets has come to a screeching halt since my last update. So much of a halt, this isn't even a cabinet update post. Since my last update I have painted the wall where our cabinets are going, gone to my daughter's dance recital, sealed the deck, gone on vacation, tried to catch up on work for a week while dropping kids off at camp, gone on another vacation, celebrated my wife's birthday, tried to catch up on work, and then traveled 3 days for work. That brings us to mid-July.

I finally made it into the shop towards the end of July and got some milling of lumber done for the cabinet. More on that later. I did finally make a fence for my router table and mounted the table to the table saw.

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Right after I finished a couple of router tables popped up for cheap. I would have bought them just for the fence but that's the way it goes sometimes.

I replaced the faucet in our kid's bathroom since it was dripping and hard to turn the knobs. Managed to do it all with no trips to the hardware store, no leaks, and quickly.

I tested some door pieces on it with my new cope and stick router bit set and wasn't feeling too safe cutting the end grain, even with a backer board. Decided it was worth it to buy the Rockler coping sled as I didn't want to waste any more of my limited shop time not working on the cabinets. The sled was missing a bolt. When I went to see if I had the correct one on hand I noticed some water in our basement.

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There was a small leak on the shutoff valve leading to our backyard faucet. This time the plumbing gods did not shine favorably on me. In fact, they seemed to want their revenge for how well the faucet replacement went. I had leaks multiple times, in different places and numerous trips to Home Depot over the whole weekend. Finally, sick and tired of it not working, I threw a Sharkbite coupler on it. As was par for this job, even that wasn't easy. I didn't realize there was solder on the backside of the pipe so it didn't seat. Another trip to the store for a new coupler and I finally got it back together. It may get fixed over the winter or it may get fixed never.

This is when it was temporarily capped so I could keep our fridge ice machine going.

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legenddc

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I bid on a few items from a woodworking auction the other day and won.

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Yes, that's not one, but two coping sleds that were in the auction that I bid on and won on Thursday. Of course I recycled the Rockler coping sled box on Wednesday. In the same lot I also picked up 4 Forrest blades, 2 Woodworker II thin kerf and 2 12" Choirmaster blades. I'm going to sell a few things like the Fastcap color punch set and possibly the thin kerf 10" blades.

There were a few other lots I was interested in but was focused on winning the lot above. I somehow ended up winning a Festool CT26. I was shocked that no one outbid me.

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legenddc

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Office Built-in Cabinets Part IV

Back in the shop and working on the cabinets again. I was looking back at pictures and notes, I started milling up boards back in May for this, hoping I would be able to get them finished before the summer hiatus. There are a lot of parts for 6 drawer fronts and 8 doors. I had to make a tally of what parts are needed and how many.
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The longer parts were the first priority. Once I had them laid out I would start working down to the smaller pieces.

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Here is where I ended up. Hopefully I've managed to get everything correct. I also should have some extra pieces in case something gets screwed up along the way. Some parts ended up not wide enough but they've been excellent setup parts.

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Last week I finished getting the drawer front frames cut to the right dimension and run through the router.

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I did pre-paint the MDF panel material before any cuts were made. Despite testing to make sure the panels would fit, they ended up being too tight. I sanded away the paint/primer on the backs of the drawer fronts until I was able to get everything to go together easily.

From there it was time to glue up the drawer fronts. All but one piece went together really easily. The one that was a pain worked out okay after a bit of finessing.
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Yesterday I spent some time sanding all 6 drawer fronts to 80 grit on all sides. Hoping to get through 120 and 150 soon and pass these over to my wife to prime them. I do still need to figure out what primer and go get it.

I wish I had more space in my shop that I could have run these boards through everything to end up with the final thickness and width without having to break them down but I don't. I did buy the maple as a bundle, sight unseen for this as it was cheaper, so I would have been cutting around knots anyway.
 
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nicholam77

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The built-in project is coming along great! The one large scale cabinet project I did took me almost a year to finish. It always takes longer than you think. Unless you're @jar944 in which case you do one a week. 🤣 But for the rest of us...

Your pics make me want to get into a woodworking project again, but like you, I've had an exceptionally busy summer and I haven't had time to get something in motion.

Keep at it, you do great work!


I've been super pleased with my Milwaukee M12 installation drill. All on the same 2.0 ah battery I drilled 200 shelf pin holes and over 200 1 3/4" or 1 1/4" pocket screws in pre-drilled holes and it still has one bar left.

I was going to ask your impressions, but see you answered a few posts later. I've been wavering on getting the M12 installation driver since it came out lol. I already have a Bosch 12v pocket driver I really like... I feel like the main benefit of the Milwaukee would be the offset chuck for me, and to have a driver to keep in the house. But I've never been able to decide between the M12, Bosch Flexi-click, or spring for the Festool CXS. And inevitably I come to the conclusion that I don't really need it. But I've always liked the installation driver format for some reason.
 
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legenddc

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The built-in project is coming along great! The one large scale cabinet project I did took me almost a year to finish. It always takes longer than you think. Unless you're @jar944 in which case you do one a week. 🤣 But for the rest of us...
Oh, I was aware this would take a while. Now my debate is do I work on the doors next or drawer boxes? If I finish the drawer boxes I could get the lower cabinet installed. Kids activities, work being busy and work trips will make it take longer. My kids have started going to bed even later so I've been trying to go down to the shop in-between dinner and bedtime while they're outside playing with our neighbors.
've been wavering on getting the M12 installation driver since it came out lol. I already have a Bosch 12v pocket driver I really like... I feel like the main benefit of the Milwaukee would be the offset chuck for me, and to have a driver to keep in the house.
I really like it but no one else in my family likes it. I should have gotten the regular M12 drill so they would feel more comfortable. I do really like the offset chuck. Makes it very easy to get into tight spots. I think Milwaukee makes a regular looking M12 drill with the attachments but sadly not in the US.
 

jar944

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Unless you're @jar944 in which case you do one a week. 🤣 But for the rest of us...


I was going to ask your impressions, but see you answered a few posts later. I've been wavering on getting the M12 installation driver since it came out lol.

Lol, if only.

I love mine, so much I bought another one last year. I grab them way more often than the m12 drills I have.
 
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legenddc

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The built-in project is coming along great! The one large scale cabinet project I did took me almost a year to finish. It always takes longer than you think.
Just spent some time on my lunch break sanding and I checked my time log I've been keeping to help me get better at estimating how long projects will take. I'm just under 40 hours of work so far on this. So it's taken less time than I thought which is nice but depressing that I could have taken a week off of work and been just as far.
 
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legenddc

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It has been a very busy past few months and I'm sure I will forget a few things in this post and I'll do a separate post on the cabinet progress.

Looking back, September was a hectic time. My sister had her first child in early September. We gave my son an early birthday present of tickets to go see his favorite band.
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That was Saturday night. Fairly certain they had sports Sunday and then on Monday night we went to a Nationals game.
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A week or two later we had my son's birthday party.
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All of this was going on my wife officially found out her one year contract wouldn't be renewed so she was actively looking for jobs and interviewing.

October was jam packed as well. My wife ran a 5K the first weekend and then I left for a 3 day work trip which was followed immediately by a 3 day meeting where I had to join the calls at 4 AM since most of my team is based in the UK. Sometime in October I tried to find the clanking noise in my wife's car. We brought it to the shop who confirmed the noise but said they couldn't find the source. After consulting the internet, I tightened a bolt on the steering shaft but the noise was still there. A few days later I came home from dropping a kid off at school and noticed a bolt head laying in my wife's parking spot. Back to the shop it went to get the lower control arms and bolts replaced. Around that same time my brother had his second child.

November started with my wife starting a new, full time job. That same day we picked up her car and then I left the following day for another 4 day work trip. When I was back my dad asked me to make the frame for a chess board he made for my son. I was thankful for a quick project and getting to hand it back to him to glue it up, sand it and finish it.
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We spent the weekend before Thanksgiving at JMU with two friends from college and their families. Kids had a great time and we ended up snagging tickets to the football game.
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I took the week of Thanksgiving off and intending to work on these built-ins but I was busy with other things. My in-laws bought a new house after years of looking and moved 5 minutes away from their other daughter. They moved in the Monday before Thanksgiving and I spent most of Thanksgiving morning with tech support to get their internet and cable set up.
 
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legenddc

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A quick trip down memory lane. My first car, bought in summer of 2004 and sold in late 2018, this was my daily driver until January of 2018.
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In 2010 I bought my Grandfather's truck and kept it until late 2020. It was a great truck with the 4 cylinder engine and 5 speed manual. It needed transmission work when I bought it and still needed transmission work when I sold it. With no airbag and nowhere to put the kids I was barely driving it. Eventually I came to the conclusion that between the cost of insurance, looming maintenance costs, and limited use, it was time to sell it.

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Summer of 2013 or 2014 we replaced my wife's old Honda Civic 200k+ miles with a new car and picked up a 2014 Mazda CX-5. It was our first car with power windows and a backup camera.

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January of 2018 it was clear my falling apart 2 door Jeep wasn't the ideal car to bring two kids to daycare. If you're noticing a trend of cars and colors, this one broke the mold. A used 2013 Nissan Altima which was purchased because it fit 2 car seats and tall people. The plan was to keep it until my daughter started kindergarten in fall of 2020.
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When Covid hit in 2020 we stopped commuting and ended up keeping the Nissan. Earlier this year we decided it was time to replace the Nissan. We were thinking another Jeep but ended up not loving it. We paused searching when my wife found out she wasn't going to have a job. After the daylight savings change I realized how poor the Nissan's headlights were again. After a lot of discussions and a few test drives, we ended up buying a...

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2026 Mazda CX-90. My streak of red, AWD, straight engines continues. Bought it right before Thanksgiving which is what sucked up my time off. That and preparing to list the Nissan, which I managed to sell last week. So now we have two red Mazda's and only look a little bit weird.
 
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legenddc

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That's a long time in a TJ!

How many miles did you put on it?
Not a ton over my 14 years of owning it. I bought it with only 23,500 miles and I think I sold it with around 116k. I've been fortunate to work close to where I live for most of my life. We tended to use my then girlfriend, now wife's, Honda Civic for a lot of the road trips, especially when gas prices were high in the late 2000's.
 
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legenddc

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Office Built-in Cabinets Part V

It appears when my phone ran out of space I deleted a lot of the cabinet pictures so some imagination is required. I finished sanding all of the lower doors. I filled in any larger holes or gaps with Durham's Rock Hard, sanded it smooth, and then sent it off to the paint shop.
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Of course the paint shop is just our dining room. My wife volunteered to paint as her job was slowing up. She did a coat of primer and then I brought them back to my shop to sand and fill in any small holes with 3M glazing putty. Then back up to be primed and painted. Since my wife had time to paint, I hoped right onto the upper cabinet doors and she painted them as well.

Now my basement is filled up with cabinets, face frames, and 14 painted drawer/door fronts. I have been working on milling the lumber for the drawer boxes. It takes a lot of time to go from 4/4 rough wood down to 5/8" boards. Add in more time to glue up boards for the wider drawers. Last Thursday I went down to try and get the bottom drawers to final thickness but my planer was acting up. It's been randomly slowing down on wider boards, resulting in them having to be pushed/pulled through. Not a very safe or fun activity.
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I could try cleaning the rollers again but that didn't last very long the last time I did it. The fix is new roller but they cost over $100. Option 3 is what I chose.
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Mostly I went this route as it would be here this past Sunday in time for me to have a week off of work.

And then the shipment was delayed until Tuesday. I borrowed my dad's planer to keep moving Sunday/Monday. Monday morning I realized his planer blades aren't aligned properly and were planning the boards on an angle. Fortunately, I realized this before anything was too thin.

It was then I walked out of the shop and noticed the floor was wet. Long story short, the water heater pressure relief valve went off. Apparently they can go bad as they get older. After 27 years ours has had enough. In case you're bad at math, it was manufactured around the time the Chicago Bulls won their final championship.

Back to our scheduled programing, with the new planer in hand, I was able to get some drawers made. I used the Rockler dovetail jig for these because my dad has one and it's free to borrow.

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I'm happy the dovetails are done on all of the drawers. The jig works well, but it's a lot of trial and error to set up. I bought some poplar and milled it up so I wasn't messing up the actual pieces. Initial tweaking of the setup was almost 2 hours. Once that was done changing the jig to the different box sizes was very quick.

After the first box was made I cut the plywood bottom, made grooves in the box and installed it. Had to make sure the measurements were correct before I finished the other 6.

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legenddc

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Office Built-in Cabinets Part VI

One of the requirements for this cabinet was the bottom drawer needed to fit a basketball. I'm proud to say I managed to achieve that and don't need to redo any drawer sizes.
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Blum undercount drawer slides on
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I somehow managed to make all of the dovetails in the drawers without messing any up. I did take the time to label everything and draw rough lines for the grooves to help me ensure nothing got flipped.
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I'm waiting on someone now to come buy the old planer and then I'm heading down to the shop to work on the grooves and plywood bottoms. Then I will sand all of the insides before I glue them up.

Any recommendations for finish on the drawer boxes? The bottom is pre-finished plywood. I don't want to use Arm-R-Seal as it smells forever in an enclosed space. I don't think Rubio will match the bottom. Maybe shellac?
 
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legenddc

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Office Built-in Cabinets Part VII

I left off with the dovetails done and needing to create the grooves and dados for the drawer bottoms. Since I had already made a test piece and completed one drawer it was easy enough to reset the table saw blade height and fence. With that out of the way I fine tuned everything to fit. I find it a lot easier to use a shoulder plane to get the bottoms to fit.
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With the bottoms in, it was time to install the drawer slides. I purchased the Rockler jig for Blum hardware a few months ago. I feel like it was simple enough not to need it but since I had it, I used it.

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I did manage to snap one of the 2.5 mm drill bits.

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And here we have 6, fully functional drawers.

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Been spending a lot of time sanding since that picture. I sanded the inside of the bottom four drawers and glued them up. The middle drawers needed a whole patched from the drawer grooves.

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Still working on sanding the bottom 4 drawers and the inside corners where I got some glue squeeze out.
 
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legenddc

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Nice drawer boxes! And nice upgrade on the planer....the 735 is a nice machine
I've been enjoying it so far.
Good updates. I hope the new planer works well for your needs.
It's been working great. Need to adjust it to avoid some snipe.
Mad woodworking skills - envious! That Bosch router though!!! Awesome!
Thank you! I like that Bosch router so much there's a second in the router lift.
 
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legenddc

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Office Built-in Cabinets Part VIII

I have spent a lot of time sanding over the last week or two. The bottom four drawers are ready for finish. I still had some work to do on one of the top drawers. When my wife and I dreamed up this project, we decided it would be nice to have a place to charge our devices. Installing an outlet in the upper cabinet would have been a lot easier but taken up a lot of real estate. I found this outlet that moves in and out with the drawers and decided to give it a try. For some reason ordering it with 4 slow USB-A outlets was significantly cheaper than ordering it with 2 standard AC outlets so that's what I ordered and I will swap out the outlet before final install.

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It needs 2 inches of clearance behind the drawers and I only have 1". I was thinking I would need to step this drawer down from 18" slides to 15" but found another option. Adding a spacer to the back of the drawer allows necessary clearance without losing space. I did have to notch the back of the spacer out some, but everything tested fine.

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Finally with that out of the way I was able to start installing the cabinet upstairs and make our basement usable again. Leveling the base was shockingly simple.

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And then it was just a matter of bringing up the cabinets, cutting a whole in the one for the outlet, scribing the face frame, attaching them together and attaching them to the wall.

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I realize that I'm going a bit out of order, but I wanted to be able to watch a movie again in our basement. I also don't want to stop making sawdust waiting for finish to dry. I can apply finish this week and let it try while I'm working or sleeping. Also, I really needed to see some visual progress. This project has been dragging on for a long time and I was starting to get a bit burnt out on it. Looking back at my notes, I think I've spent around 27 hours so far sanding.

The final thing that I need to figure out is how to keep air flowing to the return vent on the left. The topmost cabinets are 4" shorter than the middle ones so there will be a 4" gap behind them. I think I will need to have a vent on the right side of the cabinet, it's just a matter of how to connect it.

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