I took a couple of mental health days from work in order to stay home and help Paul with hanging the cabinets. I didn't get to do much, other than running out for more shims (those incidentals) and I did hold a cabinet or two while he was attaching them to the wall.
One of the things that makes many of our projects look "custom" are the extra items we add to things, for example our cabinets. We decided not to order the upper molding and the bottom molding from Kraftmaid, because one - we are cheap and two - we decided to do something a little different on the bottom molding. We just can't leave things alone.
So, the upper molding was easy, we just bought a smaller version of the crown molding which runs around the ceiling. But what to do, what to do about the bottom molding? Double ogee, single ogee, triple axel - oh lord. I should also tell you that in Mansfield, we once built our fireplace mantel piece by piece at Home Depot with various moldings (yes we were there about 2 hours) and it looked pretty spiffy.
Off we go to Rockler Woodworking in Richardson, Texas. Paul had been there before, he just didn't tell me until we were in the car. Now Rockler Woodworking is a magical place. It is primarily devoted to woodworking, they have routers, router bits, veneer, lumber and anything your heart might desire. If I was a furniture maker, I'd be in there all the time.
We took one of our doors with us so we could look at router bits for the bottom molding. Now if you have ever seen a router bit, they don't look like much, in fact, I am really surprised that they can do what they do. So I let Paul and salesman look at the different router bits and narrow it down to a couple. No point in confusing myself further, right? We ended up picking a bull nose router bit.
As we are checking out, the salesman keeps telling me what a beautiful well constructed cabinet door we have (and it should be for what it costs). And then it comes, the dreaded moment, he asks me, "what color are you staining your cabinets?" I mumbled, "I am not staining them, I am painting and distressing them." Seriously, the man looked at me like I shot his mother. Now, I am in a customer service profession, and the the word no normally doesn't come out of my mouth, except for my children and my husband on occasions I can't write about here. I felt really bad and I even rethought for a minute about staining them rather than painting them. BUT, after all the time I spent looking for the perfect white, did I want to spend another six months looking for the perfect stain. NO, NO, a thousand times NO. I might invite the salesman to my house if I can find him again to come see my kitchen when it is finished. Or maybe not.
For those of you who have never used a router or a router table, it's dangerous. This tool scares Paul more than anything and he doesn't scare easily. Here's a photo of the wood going through the router or as Paul calls it, the meat grinder.
It also makes a bucket load of dust.
Here's a photo of the finished product. Note we also decided to add a small piece under the crown molding. Now do you think that was simple, oh no, the piece went through the router and then the wood was split in half with the table saw. It's just the "Havens'" touch.
And here is a close up of the bottom piece.
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