Seven Drawers For Seven Slots

The holiday season and icy weather are both to blame for the severe downturn in cabinet making over the past few weeks. I was able to fix the sticky problem with the first 4 drawers I made. They now glide effortlessly. I also made the last 3 drawers for the butler’s pantry side.

The additional 3 drawers on the butler’s pantry are located just behind the lower section inset on the dining room side. This is where the tile panel is located. I thought about doing a cabinet there, but you can never have enough drawers. Am I right? They were fairly simple to make. The one thing I would do over if I had the chance was not make them so deep. I figured that making 3 deep drawers was easier than, say, 4 shallow drawers. The problem with this is that I had to come up with some nice pieces of salvage 1X9 redwood to make the drawers. This is easier said than done at this point in the game.

I also called about marble. I went with a different stone fabricator than when I did the kitchen. If you recall, in the kitchen, I just had the fabricator cut me a rough slab and then I cut the sink hole and finished the edges. It was a lot of work, but it saved a lot of money.

This time, money is less of an issue and so I thought I would have it done. Well, after I got the estimate I’m now rethinking that. The marble slab for the kitchen island is about the same square footage as the slab needed for the dining room. I paid $350 for the rough slab for the kitchen and picked it up myself. The first estimate for the dining room was $1,700.00 and some change! Half of that is milling, finishing, transport, installation, etc.

I specifically said I don’t want the laminate edge and they charged me for that. The laminate edge is where they glue a strip under the front edge to hide the sub-counter. I told them I didn’t want the so there estimate was $250 too high. That brought it down to a little under $1,500.00. It is not that I can’t afford it, so much as I down want to. Even if I got just the rough cut slab from these guys their price for square footage is still about twice what I paid from the other guys and it is the same type and thickness of stone. Maybe marble prices have skyrocketed over the last 3 years. I don’t know.

I’m going to get an estimate from the other guys next week. We’ll see what there estimate comes in at. This first place I contacted said they wouldn’t be able to do the work until the end of January. That is longer than I thought, but what are you going to do. I still have 18 doors to make, so it is not like I will be waiting on them.