Hope someone can help me out. I’m building a pantry cabinet that goes from floor to approximately 6 feet in height using face-frame construction with doors mounted flush to the face-frame. I’m intending to run the outer/vertical stiles to the floor with a 4″ kickspace. My dilemma is how to finish the vertical stile detail with respect to the floor molding. Originally I was thinking to rabbet the entire perimeter of the face frame leaving a 1/4″ or so around the edge and use this edge to fit the cabinet flush to the wall.
However, if I do this then the floor molding, which I expect to be 3/4″, will meet the fitted cabinet proud of the frame of the pantry cabinet. Turning the molding in on itself wouldn’t seem to relieve the obvious differences in width. If I don’t rabbet the 3/4″ face frame so that the molding meets the cabinet without being proud of it then the doors are sticking out into the room the 3/4″. This sort of fights the nice fitted cabinet look.
Anyone have any alternatives to the above 2 scenarios. Your help is appreciated.
Replies
"with doors mounted flush to the face-frame"
Do you mean inset doors?
Are you building this cabinet in a niche or existing opening? into a corner?
You could leave a 1/2" scribe(extra) on your stile against the wall and scribe it tight to the wall. If your stile is 1 1/2". make it 2" and overlap the casework by 1/2".
It's an existing opening for a kitchen closet with a luan door. I get what your saying about the scribe but then the plane of the face-frame and doors (inset I guess) protrudes into the kitchen the 3/4" thickness of the stile plus the scribe or portion thereof. I'm just thinking that it wouldn't look as 'fitted' as if the plane of the doors and face-frame were flush (or nearly flush within 1/4" or so) with the plane of the wall. That seems the only way though to keep the floor molding from sitting proud of the face-frame. I'm not familiar with what other details could be done to make it nearly flush with wall and have floor molding look nice and neat as it butts up/meets the stile of cabinet. (Maybe continue the floor molding at base rather than a kickspace?) Seems like I may need to compromise on the style/look in either case.
I guess your suggestion would leave the cabinet face-frame sitting slightly proud of floor molding which would probably look better than if the two were flush.
Thanks
Joe
Have you thought about just a euro style cabinet with full overlay doors?
You could also do a FF box, recess it 3/4" from face of wall, and full overlay hinges.
On your toe kick, are you recessing it at all from the face of the cabinet, or will it have no toe kick?
No, I have to match the existing cabinets which are face-frame, inset. The existing cabinets were done by Crown-Point but I wasn't quite ready to replace one existing kitchen 'closet' and a relocated exit space with pantry cabinets yet nor did I like the $5000 price tag for the two cabinets (one is 24" x 72" x 24"D and the other 32" X 72" x 18"D). I also wasn't quite happy with their design for these two cabs. So here I am.
I'm still a little confused about your toe base issue and base molding. You say that you have a 4" toe kick. do you have base board that you are running and base shoe?
I understand that you need your doors inset.
On your design, are you holding back the toe kick from the face of the cabinet? Typicaly it is held back 3-4" from the face on kitchen casework. On book cases, I hold back 1 1.2"-2 1/2" depending on the depth of the casework.
Do you have any pics of the situation?
Craig,
No pics (digital camera still on the list), but let me see if I can't paint a better picture. Face-frame construction with the face-plane of doors in the same plane as the face-frames (inset I've come to learn now). Looking at wall face, actually two cabinets for two openings, one of which was a former closet and the other, 6 inches left of closet, was formerly my exit to backdoor stairs and anyone taller than 6'-0" would have to duck when exiting. The stairs began approximately 20 inches from opening. I've since walled that off so this 20" deep 32" wide space can now serve as a cabinet. The exit was moved left of this space.
I was planning on a toe-kick inset approximately 4" and about 3 3/4" from the floor to the bottom of the lowest cabinet rail. (sorry if confusion with rail and stile, I've seen them used in opposite context as I do here, stile is vertical and rail horizontal here). The top of the lowest rail would be flush with the lowest maple ply partition of the cabinet(s) and butt into adjacent stiles which form the perimeter of cabinet. This all follows the existing cabinet design by Crown-Point. (Crown-Point incidentally didn't address this detail adequately either in their original design of these pantries and assumed there was no floor molding.)
The floor molding would be replicated from that appearing elsewhere in the house except not quite as tall as rest. It's a simple 5-6" tall flat piece (8" in rest of house so I've compromised here already), 3/4" thick, with about a 1 1/2" wide rabbet 1/16" deep at top with slight bevel to top. Two and half feet right of new cabinet is kitchen entry doorway with casing to floor. This floor molding butts into that door and the question I guess is how to detail it as it meets the new cabinet.
Rather than fitting the new cabinet by scribing it's stiles to the wall opening, which didn't really alleviate the dilemma for the floor molding detail or so I think, I thought it would be easier to fit the cabinet into the opening by rabbeting the stile about 1/2" in width around perimeter leaving about a 1/4" thickness. The cabinet would then be pushed into the opening and the 1/4" thickness would fit flush, or nearly so after scribing, if necessary, the depth, to the wall. But then the floor molding would look, I think, rather silly where it meets this stile, sitting proud of the stile by 1/2". Returning the molding on itself I don't think would look any better. So I thought maybe forget the rabbet around the perimeter of stile (and rail of course at top) and just leave 3/4" thick stile to fit flush with wall. The molding would then butt into the stile as it does the door casing. BUT, then the plane of the whole cabinet protrudes into room the 3/4" width of stiles. This seems counter to most pantry designs I've seen but maybe it would look OK.
I guess I want my cake and be able to eat it too. Above has assumed that stiles of cabinets continue to the floor. I suppose I could terminate their length at bottom of lowest rail, which is 3 3/4" above floor but that doesn't seem to remedy how the 5-6" height of floor molding meets the cabinet either. OR I COULD BE WRONG and there is a detail remedy which I'm not seeing. Maybe my problem is I should have accommodated the 6" height of floor molding by making lowest rail (and toe kick) 6" rather than 3 3/4" so I could have just continued the floor molding around the entire kick space or turn the kickspace corner and terminate as butt.
Maybe my approach has been an unconventional one which accounts for my problems. Hope you've had the patience to read through this. Thanks for hanging in there.
Joe
Joe,
Thanks for the explanation. I have a much clearer understanding now. My typical approach is unconventional too, so that's why people pay me the big bucks? Actually, that's why I get most of my work, is I come up with solutions others can't.
This is similar to a pantry I put into a craftsman era house that had no pantry during a kitchen remodel. We pushed back the wall 16" to set 3 22wx68hx24d" pantry cabinets. That was our height limitation due to a beam supporting the roof. We didn't discover this until after we had the redwood T&G ripped off the wall. This house was really a "craftsmans" house with the help of many 16oz. apprentices. The kitchen floor fell 3" over `4 feet. I think he used bottles of beer for levels as well. We found alot of his helpers buried underneath the house in the crawlspace.
Our resolution to the inset dilemma was to put the FF 3/4 proud of the redwood T&G on the wall. It doesn't look too awful, and goes with the Shaker theme in the rest of the kitchen.
You could use this approach on your pantry's and use your existing base molding either 6" or 8"- whatever is appropriate, and scribe it into the FF of the casework and follow underneath the TB with 3/4 stock.
If you are concerned about the profile of the 3/4" protruding into the room looking too heavy or out of place, you could rout a detail around the FF to break up the thickness. I would recommend something to complement the detail on your doors. Stop the detail short of the base molding, so you have a 3/4" square corner to land your molding to & scribe. It will be at the floor area, and not so prevalent to be an issue.
The photo shows the panty unit before we added the plate shelf, crown, and galley rail on top. The client wasn't sure about wether they wanted the flip up door mounted over the microwave, Pocket doors on TV opening were mounted later as well.
Another option you could use to end your base molding to the 'flush' cabinet would be a corner block to transition from the 2 heights of molding.
Hope this helps.
Craig
Why not trim the opening with the door casing that is in the rest of the house, then the base just terminates to the casing. You san still have the doors flush with the wall and the casing covers the space between the built-in and the wall, and no scribing.
J.P.
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