# Black walnut cabinets.



## joesdad (Nov 1, 2007)

This is a butler's pantry I finished a couple weeks ago. It is the first set of cabinets I've ever done in a natural finish. I've built many tables, individual cabinets, small built-ins and such, but this one started from a pile of rough sawn lumber and definitely took the meaning of patience and focus to a new level for me. All in all it was fun and the customer is happy. I got to see the granite counter top sample today and she picked a very nice contrasting color.

Most of my steady income work is painted units and trim work, the standard poplar/birch/prime/paint. It gets a little boring after awhile so I dove into this project with a lot of enthusiasm. My biggest lesson in this project was that this is the limit of how labor intensive a job I can handle being a one man operation and still remain profitable.


There's a beautiful knot on this end panel that added some great figure this cabinet, I must have buffed that thing a million times just to make it pop, it was as smooth as glass but the customer wasn't impressed and couldn't understand why I used that board.:glare:

The crown is 2.5", I milled the large chunky piece of molding that it sits on to give it a larger appearance. First thing I realized when installing it was that the ceiling dropped a half inch on 36" to that outside corner. I had to hog it out a bit to get the miters tight. A half hour to get one miter tight!. Nope, this wasn't the standard paint-grade job.









This base cabinet will have a small bar sink above it. Originally the customer didn't care that the cabinet would be useless because of the plumbing fixtures taking up space below, but I couldn't see opening that door and just seeing ugly...so I installed this shallow faux front to it, and at least they'll have a few shelves for something.
The panel is just face screwed on so the plumbers can get to the hook up.









The small square drawers took more time than I expected. The drawer heads were cut out of one continuous piece of solid walnut so that the grain patterns lined up, there was no room for hardware so I made the bottom mounted glides out of walnut. The glides were polished up with bowling alley wax for a nice durable slick finish. They glide nicer than any ball bearing glide! There are no stops for them because these drawers are so small (more like a narrow box) you just pull them out and set them on the counter. 

The wine bottle holder is more just for aesthetics and added a nice touch. The letter holder was made from 1/4" walnut ply that is set into 1/4" deep dados. The glass shelves were positioned so that they are hidden behind the mullions out of site.









This end panel door was pretty cool, the customer showed me a picture of one from a magazine so incorporated it into the design.
I had already assembled the main cabinet when I realized I had forgot about this thing, so I was working a little backwards to make it work.
The brown cork board was a nice find that was glued to the back of the door.

Standard euro hinges would not fit inside the skinny cabinet. They needed another half inch to clear, so I found these very nice streamline mocha-blackish laquered hinges that worked perfect.

The insides of the upper cases with the glass doors are cherry, I thought it made a nice contrast, yet is poorly represented in these photos. Everything else is walnut.


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## pianoman (Jan 16, 2008)

Very nice job... great lines and I like how the end pannel/door lines up. I also like the knott!!! Easy to see why the customers were happy. Well not really a knott ... but really excited grain.


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## mmwood_1 (Oct 24, 2007)

*Beautiful*

That's a fine looking job, one to be really proud of. 

One of my favorite lines ever from any movie was from a Dirty Harry movie(magnum force). "A man's got to know his limitations" . I think it's great to push yourself up to your limits, and in so doing, find out what those limits are. Until the next time, when you find out you can push just a little bit more....and the next time...


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## aclose (Nov 11, 2007)

wow. exquisite work! :thumbsup:
i love the thought that went into using a single board for the drawers. the continuous grain looks awesome, although some may not notice it. :glare: i wouldn't have thought to do that, thanks for the tip.
and that little end cabinet door that holds keys, change, etc. is really slick. i'm going to have to find a project to do something similar on.
great work, you should be extremely proud of it.
if you can post picts of the completed project with the counter tops and all it would be greatly enjoyed.


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## woodman42 (Aug 6, 2007)

Beautiful cabinets!


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## joesdad (Nov 1, 2007)

Thanks for the kind words.


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## ARCS (Jan 5, 2007)

Very Very Nice Work, but I can see the customer's gripe with the knot. I am sure you put a ton of time in to making that know perfect, but it doesn't really go with the rest of the cabinet. If there was some sort of continuing theme with more knotty boards on it it probably would have gone over better.


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## stuart (Jan 20, 2008)

great touch on the end side port door.

Nice to put any whatnots in that section.


looking sharp.


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