When we bought our 1910 Craftsman bungalow in Pasadena the kitchen was a disaster. The cabinets had been resurfaced with red oak veneer and lots of paint. The sink stopped working soon after and we had to hook up a hose from the adjacent laundry room to wash dishes. Baby possums poked their head through the “rodent proof” sink area. The cabinets were filthy.

Restoration—

We are school teachers by trade, but have taken up carpentry and woodworking.

Upper Cabinets: The original upper cabinets remained but the doors had been removed. We stripped the veneer from upper cabinets and refinished them. The bottom shelf had been cut to fit the overlay doors. I removed the shelf, rebuilt the lip, and then put the cabinet back together. Ifound the doors in a closet cut up and used as shelves.I rebuilt the doors by taking them apart and remilling the broken parts and then gluing them together. I customized the hinges from two different manufacturers to match the hinge marks on the original doors.

Lower Cabinets-The lower cabinets were beyond repair. My wife and I took a cabinet class at Cerritos Community College. We built the cabinets from vertical grain douglas fir finished with wipe on Poly. The face frames and doors are made of salvaged douglas fir. I started collecting the wood during this project. I denail each board, re-sawed it, surfaced it and then milled all of the parts.I have perfected the staining process. Even the drawers are made from recycled fir. I designed everything in Sketchup.

The original doors were beadboard with nailed on breadboard ends. My doors feature a true tenoned breadboard, and barn style z-braces. All hinges are surfacemount. All slotted brass screws and brass hardware.d

Bonus Features: The middle panel hides a custom dishwasher. The sink panels flip down for storage. Antique light from salvage yard.

Floors were sanded by a contractor after we removed viny tiles, linoleum and tar. (All tests for asbestos were negative).

I am in the process of building custom panels for the fridge and building a custom cat door.

You can view more pics at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne or see my blogs at http://blog.gizmodyne.com or http://www.lumberjocks.com/gizmodyne