Monday’s Plan

I’m in full obsession mode about the cabinets. Losing sleep. Lack of concentration during the day. Plans change almost by the minute. Lately what has been occupying a lot of the angst has been the center section. The real question is will it end up as dead space or usable space.

Really, its not the space that is important. Even if it ends up as dead space I’m still adding over 200 cubic feet of cabinet space to the dining room. The space behind the center section, with its tile panel, is less than 10 cubic feet. That is less than 5% of the over-all space.

Chaz thought of some clever ideas to make a hidden door to store potent potables or some other secret treasure. While there is a definite coolness factor to having a hidden door, there are some problems. First and foremost, I didn’t really design the center panel, with its tile and burl inlays, to be viewed from the back side. As good as it looks from the front, it looks that much worse from the back.

The other issue is that the walls of the lower cabinets are made from salvage redwood flooring from the kitchen. These panels that I glued up weeks ago have a definite A side and B side. It might not look that great inside the center area. There is also the level of work and craftsmanship that would go in to pulling that off. I’m not sure if I’m up to it.

What I can do though, is to make a fake wall inside to both hide and protect the backs of the tiles. This would allow me to make a door on the butler’s pantry side. That side I can paint and hide the B sides of the inside walls. That is the way I’m leaning now.



On the dining room side it would just be the panel. On the butler’s pantry side it would be a 12-inch wide cabinet. Not of much use, but better than dead space. I’m also seriously leaning towards beadboard faced doors on the butler’s pantry side. I’m considering all options after the reality of needing to make 17 mortise and tenon paneled doors set in over the weekend. This is what I did in the kitchen and it worked very well. It is traditional and it would really save a lot of work. I just hope I have enough beadboard still up in the attic to pull it off.