[mystic_cobra]

I am building a custom cabinet (wine rack/liquor cabinet) inside of a breakfast bar as part of our whole kitchen renovation. I (wife and I) am doing the entire project except the granite installation. We already completed the demolition including removing two partition walls, patching the hardwood flooring, and framing up the first half wall.

As for the custom cabinet...the exterior will be drywall with standard trim to match, the inside will be finish grade plywood with sliding glass doors. I'm a newbie at this so I'm making it up as I go.

I designed the cabinet so that it would fit between the trim of two existing windows along the wall separating the kitchen and dining room where a wall used to be. The front of the cabinet (opening) faces the dining room and the back where the bar stools will go faces the kitchen. The framing is 54" long, 21" wide, and 42" high. The plan was to have a 12" overhang on the kitchen side for bar stools (right side of second picture). Also, part of the original plan but forgotten during construction was a 1-1.5" overhang on the front side where the cabinet opening is (left side of second picture). So, I forgot about that until now (as I'm finishing the framing) and have allowed just a half inch for drywall on the front face of the cabinet. DOH! The "top plate" above the opening has not been installed yet.

I am looking for suggestions on how to deal with what I have.

Options as I see it:

1. Notch the window casing to allow the overhang and keep the granite countertop as a rectangle-no extra cuts in the counter top and keep framing as is. Planning to not have a back splash, so I assume the edge would be clear caulked to the wall and around the window trim.

2. Keep the window casing in-tact and have the counter (granite) installer notch the corner to clear the window casing. Caulk the seam as in 1.

3. Redo v1. Disassemble the whole thing and start over. This would cause a couple issues. If I decide to move the entire cabinet 1.5" towards the kitchen side, I create an additional 1.5" gap along the front edge and along the threshold from the dining room hard wood to the kitchen tile. I'd have to add some additional trim of some kind to hide this additional gap. This is not visible in the pictures, but I removed the hardwood under the cabinet so it was sitting right on the subfloor. I left a half inch gap between the framing and the hardwood-thinking back this was probably unnecessary.

4. Redo v2. Disassemble as in "Redo v1" but instead of moving the whole cabinet shrink it by 1.5" of depth. This would eliminate any changes at the threshold, but I'd still have to deal with the larger gap at the front. Plus, the cabinet is now 1.5" narrower which decreases my space and clearance between the wine bottle tops and the glass doors. Right now, it looks like I'll have 15" inside once trimmed out from the back of the cabinet to the doors. My wine bottles are about 13" tall. So, losing 1.5" should make it a close fit.

5. Have the countertop end at the front edge of the opening with no overhang.

Other ideas? Not really interested in redoing the hardwood floor, if I can help it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
Jimmy

 

[Millertyme]

i definately would not notch the casing. It would really look like a screw up. Notching the granite might look better. If you can move the whole cabinet to the right it would be the way to go. just fill in the space at the floor with a piece of flooring.

 

[jcrack_corn]

easy.

I'm sure all the pro's here know the answer.

What you do is redesign the countertop to have fancy corners. problem solved..

__ ___
\_______________________/

 

[mystic_cobra]

I was hoping some of the pros would chime in. :thumbsup:

So, you're suggesting something like 45deg corner cuts on the countertop corners?

Should I expect a countertop installer to be able to make a clean inside square corner? This will be my first experience with granite and it's my first kitchen renovation.
Attaching a line drawing showing the notch I have in mind.

Jimmy

easy.

I'm sure all the pro's here know the answer.

What you do is redesign the countertop to have fancy corners. problem solved..

__ ___
\_______________________/

 

[Willie T]

Really should be done right since you aren't that far into it. Move the cabinet.

 

[jcrack_corn]

it can be anything...have 4 corners that look the same is better than a notch..as far as the design of the corners all we know is that the design will be 1.5 inches wide....so that the short side clears the molding...

you can probably talk to the granite finisher today and tell him of the problem and they can show you corner options.

I was hoping some of the pros would chime in. :thumbsup:

So, you're suggesting something like 45deg corner cuts on the countertop corners?

Should I expect a countertop installer to be able to make a clean inside square corner? This will be my first experience with granite and it's my first kitchen renovation.
Attaching a line drawing showing the notch I have in mind.

Jimmy

 

[jcrack_corn]

of course that is what should be done, but he said several times he doesnt want to do that because he already left a 0.5" gap in flooring, and moving 1.5" right would now leave a 2" gap...which he cant/doesnt want to try to patch and match.

Really should be done right since you aren't that far into it. Move the cabinet.

 

[Willie T]

I don't want to file yearly taxes either..... but it's still the only way to make things right.

A notch or four clipped corners is going to look wrong. The wall end should go flush and even to the wall. It's sometimes tough to bite the bullet and do work right, but that's what separates the men from the boys. :wink:

 

[mystic_cobra]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I really appreciate the opportunity to bounce ideas off the group.

I am pretty sure that I am going to move it back 1.5" or more specifically, I'll shrink the depth by 1.5" and keep the kitchen side lined up with the flooring transition. The interior depth will still be deep enough to allow wine bottles to fit horizontally with over an inch clearance to the doors we're planning to use.

So, assuming I go this route, I have to deal with fixing the floor. Essentially, I'll have a 2" gap (or just over 2" if my cut wasn't perfect) to fill.

I am looking two options. Find some sort of baseboard/molding that is more than an inch wide that won't look rediculous OR add a hardwood flooring "picture frame" around the base like the attached.
With the orientation of the flooring, the "picture frame" will really be just on the front as the short side will go the same direction as the frame. The other two sides are tile and wall, so no flooring there.

Is there some kind of wood floor molding/trim that is wide enough to cover the gap? I've seen shoe molding only up to 3/4".

 

[Willie T]

The "picture frame" can honestly be very attractive if done carefully.

 

[Ron6519]

Why don't you just make a cabinet for the base, why all the framing? You don't need it to hold up the granite.
Ron

 

[mystic_cobra]

Why don't you just make a cabinet for the base, why all the framing? You don't need it to hold up the granite.
Ron

That's an excellent question. I "think* the answer is that the wife wanted it drywalled/painted but I will confirm that tonight.

 

[Ron6519]

That's an excellent question. I "think* the answer is that the wife wanted it drywalled/painted but I will confirm that tonight.

You can paint birch ply and without the loss of space.
What were you going to use for the interior?
Ron

 

[mystic_cobra]

Interior was going to be finish grade .5" plywood, probably stained and cleared coated.

 

[mystic_cobra]

The cabinet frame has been modified and rebuilt moving the front back 1.5". Not as much work as originally expect. Glad I was able to reuse the lumber from the walls I took down and didn't have to buy any. Still planning to fill the gap at the front with the picture framed wood flooring.