Recycled Kitchen Cabinets

Here is a post that I meant to post months ago... ....

After the flooding incident, the entire house was remodeled, including the kitchen. We later realized the cabinets were done with almost 100% recycled materials! This is mainly because we (and our landlord) are cheap, but if you prefer to think of it as being green, that's cool too.

Materials and their sources:

Cabinets and Sink       ->     Craigslist

Countertop Laminate  ->      Thrift Store

Drawer Handles         ->      The Re-Store

  

Our landlord had found the replacement cabinets on Craigslist and I swear they looked like were taken from a meth lab that was being renovated. I can only imagine the deal he got on this heap (likely free). But after a good cleaning, some paint, and a lot of TLC, the cabinets themselves actually turned out better than the previous ones.

Cabinets that we fixed up from total crap to pretty nice.
The counter-top needed some work.

The counter-tops however, were a different story. In the rush to get the house livable, the particleboard surface of the counter-top was not nailed down by our landlord's chosen handyman. It was actually placed on upside-down and completely backwards! The laminate counter-top was total crap: thin, cracked, chipped, not glued down, and gross. So it was a bit sub-par to prepare food upon.

Lucky for us, a good friend of ours, Matt Behring, is currently pulling a 4.0 in the Cabinetmaking and Fine Woodworking Program at The Wood Technology Center at Seattle Central Community College. It is prestigious woodworking school and he will without a doubt go on do great things. In fact he already has, with our counter-tops! 

Tess made an awesome find when she found this brand-new roll of nice counter-top laminate at the Ballard Goodwill for $12.  One man’s trash is another man’s kitchen.

Counter-top laminate from the Ballard Goodwill for $12 !

It was easy to convince Matt to help us fix and laminate the counter-tops as it is the perfect opportunity to test out his new-found skills in a real-world setting, and we couldn't be happier with the results! I was very impressed with his work, from the second he showed up looking all professional with his toolbox and shop apron, to when he put the finishing touches on the laminate and we went out for a celebratory beer.

He has the necessary tools of the trade, knows the tricks of trade, and has honed his skillset to a point where this could have easily have been his 100^th  real-world install (instead of his 1^st)! I enjoyed helping him help us with this project, and I learned quite a lot of useful skills in the process.

Matt fixing the particle board.

J-rolling the laminate to help the cement bond.

Rough cutting the hole for the sink.

Routing away the excess laminate. 
Note how good the final routed hole for the sink looks after being routed!

He briefly used a really awesome Japanese saw called a Dōzuki, which is a type of backsaw. 
It has a very thin kerf, only cuts on the back-stroke, and therefore is used for fine cuts. 
It is awesome and I really want one!

To finish up the kitchen cabinets, we got new drawer handles from the Re-Store. The Re-Store is a concept that I absolutely love. It is what you would have if you combined a thrift-store and a Home Depot. It’s a store that sells recycled and re-purposed hardware, fixtures, and building materials! Brilliant.

Cabinet and Drawer handles from the Re-Store.

I wish I had a good before picture to really drive home how much of an improvement this laminate counter-top is. But you'll just have to take my word for it; it is night and day! 

If anyone in the Seattle area needs any carpentry and/or laminate work done, I know a guy! He is professionally trained, top of his class, and is highly recommended! Thank you Matt!

The final counter-top. We love our professionally installed thrift-store find!