Due to my work commitments, we only had a couple days to work on M.T. Acres this week.

Tina sanded and got the first coat of varnish on the top corner cabinet.  Then I had to stop her progress on finishing it because I needed it to size some of the other top cabinets.

I got the face frame and crown moulding glues on the cooktop cabinet.

The crown moulding is a pain in the neck to clamp while glueing because most of the clamping surface is outside the plane of the face frame.  Thus, it has a tendency to want to roll as soon as you put any pressure on the clamps.  We found using the longer pipe clamps along with a couple cargo straps works about the best.

Once that dried, I was able to add the inlay.

The corner cabinet, the cooktop cabinet and the refrigerator cabinet all hang on a wall with 2 inside corners.  Those are always a pain in the neck because you have to get the face frames exactly the right size or there will be a very noticeable gap.

My solution was to temporarily hang the corner cabinet and the cooktop cabinet on the wall, then build the face frame for the refrigerator cabinet a bit oversized and trim it fit exactly.

So the first step was to make some wall hangers from scrap 1/2 inch plywood.

Then measure and screw them to the wall studs with the 45° angle pointed towards the wall.

The screws that I am using on the hangers are pretty good sized – #10 X 3 1/2 inches.  With the first couple, I was having some trouble tearing up the Phillips bits in my drill.  I wrecked 2 bits and 4 screws.  Then I remembered I should be lubricating my screws:

So for any of you young bucks, if you plan to do any screwing make sure you have plenty of screw lube.  It makes for a much better screwing experience.  (A wax ring for a toilet or Ivory bar soap work equally well.)

I like hanginging wall cabinets this way because it allows me to put all of the cabinets on the wall before I permanently affix them.  It also allows me to get the cabinets aligned with each other and screwed together while they still have a little bit of movement.  Then, once everything is all perfectly aligned and fitted together, I can screw the whole assembly to the wall.

Once these two were in place, I took my measurements and built the face frame for the refrigerator cabinet.  I made the stile on the right side about 3/4 inch wider than the rest of the stiles.

Then with some careful planing, scraping and sanding, we were able to get a perfect fit even though the wall is not perfectly flat.  I was also very happy that it only took about 5 tries to get it to fit.

Once we got the fit right, we took it back down and added the crown moulding and the inlay.

Once the crown moulding was on, I could not resist the urge to see what the wall would look like once they are all hung.

Tina still has 3 more coats of varnish and one sanding to do on the corner cabinet as well as all four coats and 2 sandings to do on the others.  But at least we can envision what the whole project is going to look like when it is done.

My original plan was to make all of the top cabinets the same depth and the same height.  I am really glad we decided to make some of them taller and deeper than the others.  It really makes the whole wall more interesting and really accents the crown mouldings.

The other 2 wall cabinets are done through all 4 coats of varnish but I did not hang them because we have to take these down again for Tina to finish the others.

The wires sticking out from the wall are for the LED lights that go under the cabinets.  I was more than a little concerned about those as well.  The wire needs to come out below the bottom of the cabinet but still through a hole in the back of the cabinet.  That only leaves me with about a 1/2 inch of “wiggle room” for the hole.  But after measuring the wires and the backs of the cabinets, everything looks like it is going to fit together perfectly.

Next week, it is on to building the kitchen island while Tina finishes the top cabinets.