In the interest of keeping Tina with some work that she can do, I decided to periodically take a few hours away from the cabinetry and woodworking stuff that I really enjoy to do some jack-pine savage carpentry, which it still fun and rewarding, but not as much as the cabinetry.  So this week, I decided I would take a couple hours and get the service door into the garage to the point where Tina could paint it.  That involved getting the brick moulding up and getting a door closer installed.

However, there was a problem.  When the builder installed the door, he did not install it plumb.  On the garage side, the door frame stuck out almost 1/2 inch on the bottom and was almost flush on the top.  Inside the house, we have the same problem but reversed.

So my solution was to clean up some of the crap with a utility knife, then to rip a 1/4 inch piece of pine to glue on one side of the brick moulding.  I did angle the rip cut a little but did not try and get an exact fit because the tapers did a heavy skim coat of mud when they were taping the sheetrock so the gap was not a consistent straight line.

The result came out pretty good but there is still a bit of a gap at the bottom of the door.  But I think Tina will easily be able to fill that in with painter’s caulk and make it look pretty good.

Then I hung the door closer and installed a door stop.  The door closer was a bit of a disappointment because of the 3 ways it could be installed, none of them were optimal.  The way I chose to install it is mechanically the best, but it does look a little weird because the closer is hanging down over the fake raised panel in the door.  Even so, it is plenty strong so I hope the inspector does not have a problem with it.

When we started this whole project, I told Tina that I would do the inside of the house however she wanted if she would leave my garage for me to decide how I did it.  Mostly I have been pretty good about honoring that agreement.  Then we came to the kitchen cabinets…

Tina has to be able to work in the kitchen every day, so it must be practical.  But it is also about the only place in the house where I can show off my woodworking skills.  My initial thought was she wanted real fancy tombstone shaped raised panel doors and something similar for the drawer profiles.  What she ended up deciding on is doors and drawers being square and having very simple rounded edges.  The doors on the top cabinets are going to have some kind of glass panels and the bottom doors are going to be simple flat panel oak.  I think it will actually look really nice, but it does not give me much to brag about.

So, the compromise was that I could do a crown moulding however I wanted (since it will not collect dust) but the doors and drawers will be simple roundovers.  Deal made!

After cutting up some samples and looking at the options with the bits I have and the bits I could order, we decided on a double stack Roman Ogee profile, and I got her to agree to a simple inlay for good measure.  I think we invented a whole new architectural style and I am calling it Southwestern Baroque.

Initially, I planned on just mounting the mouldings with a 3/8 inch by 1/4 inch rabbit.  That worked okay, but I was not happy with it because it did have some flex.  So I decided to beef it up a bit with some scrap that I collected when straightening the oak boards.  Much better!

Once I got the inlay laid down, it became a special kind of cool!  (More on that in a few minutes.)

My next step was to start on the face frame for the top corner cabinet.  The face frame was easy enough to make after cutting some clamping cauls from a scrap piece of 2X4.

But how to glue it on the cabinet while sitting at a 45 degree angle?

I farted around thinking on that one for at least an hour until I looked in my scrap wood pile and came up with these.  They took me about 15 minutes to build but about 1 hour to think of!

Once the glue mostly dried, I had to try them to see if they are everything I thought they would be.  They are!

I have not yet glued the face frame on because I wanted to give my jig a full night to dry before I put too much stress on it.  But they are rock solid!

Onto the part where all of the hard work comes together…

Tina did the final sanding and got the first coat of varnish on the top cabinets that I finished yesterday.  Holy crap!  Even with just one coat of varnish, they look amazing!