# Concealing Irregularity: Face Frame Stile Wider than Cabinet?



## Lovegasoline (Sep 27, 2009)

I've a question from my epic built-in renovation. There's a base cabinet that originally had a wider stile on the left than the right, more than twice as wide. This was so that a broom closet door could swing open. I'm renovating the cabinet and making a new face frame. The super skinny right stile just looks too weird to me. 

So I decided to add a little width to it. The left stile is about 2-3/4" wide and I'm planning to make the right one about 2- 1/4 wide (lots of dimensions to juggle: broom closet door clearance and counter top overhang on the sides). To make it wider means it will extend beyond the sides of the cabinet for about 1/2" - 3/4". Also, the face frame doesn't align perfectly with the case side, they'll angled as everything in here is skewed and crooked. 

In any case, I wanted to get some feedback on this, and what are typical methods for concealing this sort of thing when viewed from the side?

BTW, a friend out of the blue gave me a Stanley #66 beading plane. My cabinets actually have a bead on the doors and face frame edges. So I made a beading blade from an and sawsall blade and cut a bead on the back edge of the extended face frame stile. Do you think that will function to provide a little detail in an obscure place rarely seen, or conversely just draw more attention to the back edge of the face frame by introducing more edges to catch shadows and light and thus highlight the fact that it overhangs and that it's not in alignment to the edge of the cabinet?


**Also, when mounting the butcher block counter top, do I need to make provisions for wood movement? I've never fixed a butcher block top in place.


----------



## gmercer_48083 (Apr 9, 2016)

It appears that the butcher block is about 6"-7" from the photos. I would glue corner blocks to the corners and screw the butcher block counter top to that. Wood movement on the butcher block will be very slight because it's depth is less than 7". If you are making the butcher block the full depth of the cabinet you would have to provide a fastening method that allows movement from front to rear. It is hard to tell from the photos if the face frame is completed yet. Are you going to provide a toe kick in the face frame or not. When you say skewed are you saying not vertical (plumb)? It looks like the side on the right is not plumb. The cabinet should be shimmed so the top will set onto it level with sides that are square. Describe each of these facts with photos, and I think you will get a better response.


----------



## Lovegasoline (Sep 27, 2009)

Sorry for the confusing photos.

The actual countertop can be seen in the top 2 photos, it's on the ground leaning against the sink (the 6" piece you reference was just temporarily there for looks) and it's about 21" deep by 30"+/- wide. Will butcher block need to be mounted to allow for expansion in both dimensions?

The kitchen cabinetry is in sad shape. It may seem as if I'm making a silk purse from a pig's ear, but I'm trying to renovate the kitchen without replacing everything. A better explanation is here with more photos:
http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f17/...estoration-let-me-draw-your-expertise-200209/

OK. The original cabinet was falling apart and the drawers didn't work. I made a new face frame and am making new drawers (on Blumotion sliders vs. original wooden drawer runners). I'll make a cutting board like the original that must have existed, but I never saw, which will be stored in the slot under the top. Two cabinet doors are being stripped and refinished. No toe kick: originally there was a narrow strip of molding on the floor with a raised rabbet at it's back as a stop for the doors (similar in look and profile to a floor saddle/threshold plate ... in fact I have a spare one that the guy who installed new floors in the kitchen stained and finished for me to match the oak flooring, which I'll modify and use). I may at a future date, make two cabinet-wide drawers on slides (either keeping the doors or getting ride of the doors) and in that situation I'd likely retrofit a rail/toe kick at the bottom. 
I also added extensions to the sides of the cabinet to make it deeper (so it will hold a larger modern day microwave oven) and lowered the countertop a teeny bit. 

Everything is skewed in here (!) which is what's made my first kitchen cabinetry work exceedingly challenging. Not as bad as the Tower of Pisa, but enough to make things challenging. The bottom of the cabinets 13" above the countertop is not level (when I put a microwave on the countertop it's a tight fit to the bottom of the cabinets ... and an angled gap would be glaring and draw the eye). The top of the sink is not level, it tilts forward ... the counter top is less than 1/2" away and its top is about 3/4" below the sink's top ... so if the counter top is level it will not be on the same plane as the sink and where there edges meet will be an angle making everything look crooked. Everything is skewed one way or the other. Actually the stiles on the built-in are the most plumb.

So, what seemed like a straightforward undertaking, i.e. building a new face frame/deeper cabinet/new countertop became an exercise in 3D chess. If I get the cabinet level and plumb it doesn't flow with the rest of the kitchen which is skewed ... it looks off and accentuates how off everything is. So my priority was to adjust things so the eye isn't drawn to glaring imperfections and to ease them so things flow together and the kitchen looks tightly put together (allowances are made for, and are read as 'character' of course in vintage stuff) at the expense of a perfectly level counter top, etc.


----------



## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

I don’t think a real wood top is your best choice here. Water is the enemy of real wood. With the placement of the top against the sink, I think a laminated top, a stone top or even a tiled top will be more practical. If you’ve already purchased the wood top, attach it from the bottom using screws through corner glue blocks. Drill your holes slightly larger than the shank of the screw to allow for wood movement.


----------



## Lovegasoline (Sep 27, 2009)

Wood isn't at all an issue here for the countertops.

The countertop that this is replacing is solid wood (just edge joined planks, not butcherblock) and has been in that location for decades without any issue. 

The sink is a double farmer and the side near that counter is extremely deep, like a foot and a half or so. 
There's a side splash also, so only the forward 6"-7"(?) of the counter top will be 'exposed'. Also, the counter doesn't abut the sink, there's an air gap of about 1/2"-3/4" or so. Practically _zero_ water from any sink activity has ever gotten on the countertop. The only H20 that gets on the counter is from someone placing a something on it that's wet on the bottom ... and previously there was no room to do this except a tiny front corner area, as the microwave oven pretty much covered the entire surface except for a very small boarder (it's the reason I've increased the depth of the cabinet, to give a little more breathing space and front boarder for the microwave). 

I hadn't got any replies so I went ahead and made two cleats for the inside top of the of the cabinet's case sides to affix the top. Previously, in the original build there were two pieces of picture rail molding on the top of the case sides and the wood top was nailed to this. 

What about drilling lightly elongated holes in the cleats and affixing the top with screws (and maybe a washer under the screw head)?


----------



## Toolman50 (Mar 22, 2015)

Lovegasoline said:


> Wood isn't at all an issue here for the countertops.
> 
> The countertop that this is replacing is solid wood (just edge joined planks, not butcherblock) and has been in that location for decades without any issue.
> 
> ...


This is what I had suggested above. >


----------



## gmercer_48083 (Apr 9, 2016)

Lovegasoline said:


> Wood isn't at all an issue here for the countertops.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes elongated holes in the cleats with screws and washers to accommodate wood movement.


----------



## Lovegasoline (Sep 27, 2009)

Nothing wrong with securing the countertop at the back edge and use elongated holes for the other attachment points, correct? it's only 20" wide across the grain.


----------

