My house, which is 40 years old, is under constantly renovation. That phrase, for those of you who don’t know, means I’m constantly messing up parts of the house just enough to force me to eventually fix them. The key word there is “eventually.” Everything will eventually be done, especially when there’s enough time and money.
For those of you who don’t know, there will never be enough time or money.

Anyway, a recent project of mine has been to renovate the kitchen. But the kitchen is always being used and there is never the time or money to do it quickly (or slowly, for that matter). So, the past few years have witness me ‘adjusting’ the kitchen in several different ways. I will spare you the details. Let’s just say that a good, well-thought-out plan is always a fine starting point – and I that I seldom have such a plan.
But having finally settled on the proper way to lay out my cabinets and appliances, I set myself up in my basement workshop to make a tall, wide pantry cabinet. It was to be a big box, floor to ceiling, with a face frame. I plan on making doors once all the cabinets are done and using traditional hinges. I like the way those hinges look. And I find face frames more substantial.

The cabinets are made from white melamine. It’s pretty much the cheapest finished material you can buy and it’s sold in every building supply place I’ve ever seen. For this particular cabinet, since it is to be very tall, I wanted adjustable shelves. For just a little more than a full sheet of melamine, I bought four pieces that were 16″ wide and predrilled for shelf pins. I discovered sometime after I bought them that they were not actually melamine coated but rather some kind of white-painted paper. But since these are to be vertical, wear isn’t really much of an issue.

I am normally in a bit of a hurry. I think it might be an inherited trait. Or perhaps I simply learned at an early age that anything worth doing is worth doing as fast as humanly possible. While I can’t say that always lends itself to the highest quality of work being done, it does tend to get results.
Results are not always the ones intended.

I built my cabinet in two side-by-side pieces, since my stairwell is narrow and the turn into it is quite sharp and restricted. I’ve had difficulty getting 2x4s down the stairs, and, since the cabinet was almost 8 feet tall, I tried to keep that in mind.
But then I started to concern myself with joining the members of the face frame together. It’s solid wood and prone to shrinkage. It will be painted, but cracks would still come through. My experience is that glue and nails don’t prevent the joints opening up. Biscuits are always an option, as are dowels. But since the edge of the frame will be covered once the cabinet’s installed, I decided to screw through the edges of the vertical members into the horizontal ones. Nothing beats screws, after all.
So, I joined the two parts of the cabinet together and attached the face frame with nails through the front onto the box. I filled the nail holes and then sanded everything smooth. I was quite pleased with the outcome.

It’s hard to explain the irritation I felt cutting through the face frame to detach the two parts of the cabinet to be able to get them up the stairs. I tried to get the cabinet up but it just would not make the turn to get into the stairwell. I seriously considered tearing apart the bulkhead at the bottom of the stairs but decided not to since it would involve ripping out part of the floor. I also thought about tearing down one wall of the stairwell. The fact is, the stairwell was built stupidly, but I decided I would not be quite as stupid in my response.

So, I took a deep breath and butchered my cabinet and left the stairs intact.

Back together and installed, the cabinet looks as it should. The face frame is fixed and I hope the wood filler doesn’t crack under the paint. I know the joints where the sides meet the fixed shelves will hold up well.

Originally posted December 15, 2013