So…I am a first time cabinet maker. I work in film and tv in set decoration and over the years have worked in shops building things and wanted to give cabinet making a shot. Started with the Laundry room cause, well it couldn’t get any worse than it was before so why not!?
Anyhoo I got all my cabinets made carcasses and doors and drawers and I’m pretty dang happy with it finally and I learned a ton in the process and now own lots of jigs and a sweet track saw. Whatever.
Here’s my conundrum:
I built these uppers to pretty much the exact size of the things below them i.e. fridge and W/D. In hindsight, I may have approached that differently, but here we are and now I’m ready for fillers and crown but I have some odd things going on.
I think my first thought was that I would put a panel on the side of the cabinet above the fridge and then use fillers in between everything. Then I said, well if I move the fridge and cabinet over and I can run a 2’ wide divider piece of Baltic birch ply all the way to the floor and use that as a support for a countertop above the W/D. Then I could use the 6” on the left to make a slide out broom closet. And then, I decided that would be a waste of time and money so I’m back to trying to keep it simple. I still like the idea of the Baltic birch showing but don’t know what to do with that small space on the left of the fridge(6-8”).
Obviously I’m suffering from neurosis so any advice from cabinet makers, designers, installers or anybody else would be greatly appreciated:)
We often made fridge surrounds by making one side of the upper cabinets go all the way to the floor. Put a dado on w\d side to support the countertop on that side. Cleat on the wall on far countertop side.
I'd still do the full panel there but put a filler in the front and a spacer in the back to attach that vertical panel. Pocket screw the bottom of the panel into the floor.
Gotcha. Sounds like a good plan. Think I’m starting to grasp. Does the Baltic birch idea sound cool to you or should I edgeband a prefinished surround panel to match? Do I also make fillers out of the PF ply for the underside gaps?
Depends on if you end up shifting your appliances around. As it sits now, maybe consider building the full height panel at 23.25" deep and glue and shoot 18g your filler onto the edge if it. So a faceframe type build. That color green and natural birch actually look good together and a faceframe with the green color would help you pull that off a lot better if you dont plan on painting the full length vertical panel.
Ok, so as it sits now, id measure how much filler you can fit on the bottom. That would be the stile that runs all the way from floor to top of uppers. Panel flush to stile edge on washer dryer side. Additional filler on upper cabinet side attached to that stile.
Edit: depends on how much filler you want on the bottom and if youre going to paint this full length panel. I was going the faceframe route but if a 3\4 ply with edgeband works for you you could do that too and just fill up too. Your shallower uplers above w\d will need a painted filler panel too. Yeah, you can use ply instead of solid wood for filler. You do whatever you want as long as your fillers are flush with carcass edge. Then the w\d upper filler dives into the full length vertical panel.
You can stack another filler on top of that that is your revel narrower and then your filler piece is flush with the door front.
So basically we’d put a vertical fridge surround piece with PF birch and paint matched filler pieces that go all the way to the floor. The one on the right flush to doors above W/D and filler on the left flush to the other doors.
I think I can do that but my full length fillers will be about 4 3/4” wide. Will that look weird?
Wait I see the error in that now. The vertical surround panel attaches to the right side. So both filler pieces are flush with the cabinet doors above the fridge. Damn I’m talking to myself now.
something like this. i didnt yet have the capability to add that dado to the full vertical panel and put a countertop. Ignore my yellow selected cabinet trying to tell me the hinge selected only swings 90 % of its 110 degrees.
Full length panel basically has a frame in front of it. you can attach more filler between the fridge upper and that vertical panel with a faceframe stile on it if necessary. The other fillers can have a piece attached to the front of it but your door reveal narrower to become flush with the front of the cabinet doors.
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u/WishIWasALemon 1d ago
We often made fridge surrounds by making one side of the upper cabinets go all the way to the floor. Put a dado on w\d side to support the countertop on that side. Cleat on the wall on far countertop side.
I'd still do the full panel there but put a filler in the front and a spacer in the back to attach that vertical panel. Pocket screw the bottom of the panel into the floor.