Building a new Pantry

Our new Pantry

 ... painted the wall since there was absolutely NO colour in the kitchen ... added some Ikea cabinets ... built a top and bottom for each cabinet which you will see better in a later picture ... then taking a page from Laura's cutting board in the previous blog I make a counter top to match and extended it under the  cabinet on the left so that everything would be symetrical ... added a new split receptacle on the right side and then one shelf ... will add another but need the boss's opinion(s) before putting up the second and possibly a third. The following pics show the different steps involved.

 

You start with a painted wall
 

 Add in a rail to hang the lower cabinets .. notice we have screwed the three cabinets together so that we have a nice tight fit
 

 
The lower cabinets hung on the wall ... we added a maple bottom  ... one solid piece that ties them all together and adds a nice look that matches the floor and the upper cabinets above the sink.
 

 

A better look at the bottom of the lower cabinets

 



The upper cabinet installed ... we also added a maple top to this one to match the maple that we added to the bottom of the lower cabinets ... notice the pieces of wood between the upper and the lowers ... this is for the countertop to slide through since we wanted the maple look through the centre so that everything would be symetrical
 

 

 The cabinets are hung ... the  blue is a protective layer of film that will be removed
 

I put Laura's cutting board on just to see what it looked like and loved it so much I  decided to make the counter top look identical ... this follows

This is what you start with for making the cutting board countertop ... two pieces each of 8 quarter white maple and walnut.
 

I then cut each wood to the correct width starting with a sliver piece one sixteenth inch wide and then each subsequent piece is a thirtysecond of an inch wider ... I could only go up to seven eights of an inch since when glued up they would be too wide.
 

The finished countertop installed .... Notice the maple piece across the back at the wall ... I added this to make the top the right width but also to add stability ... I was afraid that the two pieces I cut and flipped over to provide a design cue could eventually come apart because I had to glue together end grains and they typically don't glue up very well ... the maple strip at the back will prevent this. Also ran the top through the router table to taper the top outside edges. Looks good eh!
 

The cabinets with the countertop and the blue protective film taken off ... handles added ... might move the handles on the upper down to the bottom since the gals are a tad shorter than me
 

 A better picture of the countertop ... one hell of a lot of work but it turned out very nice in the end.
 

The whole idea of having some counter space on this wall was to be able to move some appliances from the sink wall to clear some space on that counter, Laura also wanted to eliminate some clutter so we added a shelf above ... we have two coffee makers and because of their colour I moved them as well although to do this I needed to add a split receptacle to that wall.
 

Door handles ... these might get changed.
 

The finished look before adding a receptacle for the appliances ... another shelf needs to be added but that can wait for Laura and Lucy to figure out how high to put it.
 

Added the receptable ( split circuit as well ) to the right side so that the cords wouldn't clutter up the countertop ... it is only 13.5 inches wide so not a lot of room to hide the cords ... I don't like the cords hanging over the side but didn't have a better option.

 

A bunch of daffodils ... we have tons and tons on our property at this time of year.

My Garlic patch ... this is two sections of six in total. Each section has about 100 plants so I'll end up with about six hundred garlic come summer .... I planted about 20 varieties ... Stratford has a garlic festival each September so I went to one of the venders and asked the lady to put two bulbs of each variety in separate bags and to mark the varieties on the outside ... when I got home I separated each into individual cloves and planted them all in the fall in my raised beds ... can't wait to taste these babies. When mature and ready to pick in mid July they will be about two feet high. Last fall I took a course in braiding garlic so will have my work cut out for me this summer. Garlic anyone?

 

 

 



Laura's Cutting Board

Laura was down at the Farm on Easter Weekend and we dived into my workshop and created a cutting board ... I have a very talented daugther

 

 

The finished product !!! ...

...... once we glued it up we cut a half inch strip about a third of the way over and turned the piece end to end and re-glued it in place. Then we slightly beveled the edges and added a grove on each end for handles ... we then finished it with a oil/wax compound that we import from British Columbia.

 

The wood cut to length, sanded and lined up. We used white maple and walnut ... started with the skinny pieces .. one of each and they are a sixteenth of an inch wide ... then increased the size by one thirty second until we reached an inch wide ... these where then put together starting with the wide maple and then the skinny walnut and finishing with the skinny maple and the wide walnut. Each of the different woods on each end are identical so when we cut a piece out through the middle and flip it the width of the wood matches exactly.

Glue up including the next few pics .... didn't get any pics of the in between steps ... sorry.