Kitchen lower cabinet planner
Once the wood is flat, it’s left to acclimate, says owner James Stewart. For its doors, Kennebec starts with rough lumber, then flattens it on a wood joiner, a tool similar to a planer.
The practice allows for greater emphasis on details like doors and drawer faces. The idea is to use traditional techniques on the visible and functional parts of the cabinetry while using more mechanized methods on items like cabinet boxes, which lack detail but are time-consuming to make. That’s the goal of cabinetmakers at Crown Point Cabinetry, the Kennebec Company, the Cooper Group, and others, who combine the use of modern technologies and hand-craftsmanship. Some argue that, like an 18th-century wire-arm chandelier, cabinets should have small variations that give them the appearance of being hand built. While construction standards are sometimes higher than those of the past, most of these designs are cut to such precise tolerances using computer numeric control (CNC) that they’re almost too perfect. Quarter-sawn oak-shown here with a deep, expressive finish-is common in many turn-of-the-20th-century houses, from coast to coast. Cabinetmakers replicate details like flat-panel or raised-panel doors, face-frame boxes, and sculpted feet, adding higher-end construction details such as dovetail joinery to cabinet styles that would never have had them. In many ways, those early 20th-century cabinets set the standard for what a traditional or “restoration” kitchen looks like today, even when the kitchen is going into an earlier house. Drawer faces, also composed with stiles, rails, and panels, were the fourth side of drawer, not applied over a finished drawer box, a distinction many reproduction cabinetmakers follow today. Doors were typically inset, meaning the door closed flush into the cabinet’s face frame. To give them strength and stability, the stiles and rails were fastened using mortise-and-tenon joinery. Dovetails, a traditional cabinetmaker’s joint and a contemporary must-have, were rare even for drawers.ĭoors were also face framed, with floating panels at the center held in place by stiles and rails. This custom pullout keeps oversized utensils out of sight but in easy reach knife and spice drawers and recycling bins are favorite upgrades.Īll of these cabinets were face framed, meaning the front of the box was constructed of stiles and rails joined together, typically using butt or half-lap joints that were then glued and nailed. Built from solid, locally available 1″ x 4″ wood, these early cabinets met standardized dimensions even when built onsite by a carpenter, wrote Jane Powell in Bungalow Kitchens (Gibbs Smith). Fixed cabinets were reserved for the pantry, the transitional space between kitchen and dining room where plates, serving pieces, and cutlery were stored.Ĭabinets began to proliferate during the building boom in builder’s cottages and houses in the 1910s and 1920s. The area under the drainboard sink was completely open.
Even in so grand a structure as the Gamble House, built in 1908, cabinetry was limited to one large and one smaller pass-through cupboard. Finding the right balance between, say, a late-19th-century appearance and a 21st-century lifestyle is a juggling act.įew kitchens before about 1910 had what could be considered built-in cabinets. Kitchens are larger and filled with such appurtenances as pot fillers and espresso makers, and contemporary homeowners demand storage capacity beyond even the pantries of old. Getting cabinetry right is tricky, given social and technology changes-and because the kitchen has evolved from being a closeted area for servants to the center of family life. What gives an old-house kitchen the feeling of authenticity? It’s the cabinets that connect a new installation to an earlier time, whether or not you choose marble countertops and vintage appliances. The recessed undersink cabinet makes a toekick unnecessary. Hand-selected woods, smoothed by planing and put together using strong, traditional joinery techniques, then beautifully finished-these are the hallmarks of authentic period cabinets made today by a handful of companies.