Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinets Paperback – August 1, 2003

I'm in the process of building my own house and plan on building my own kitchen cabinets. Cabinet building has always kind of intimidated me, but after buying Danny's book i have the confidence to tackle the job myself. I've bought a few cabinet building books and quite frankly most of the writers are more tuned in to telling you their own little tricks of the trade to do things like they do, but they never get down to the "nuts and bolts" of actually doing the job.Danny makes the job seem so much easier and his writing style makes you feel like he is right beside you guiding you through the process. His book also has drawings and dimensions and cut lists for various types of cabinets making the job so much easier for the novice cabinet maker, instilling a great deal of confidence (at least for me) to get the job done, and have it look great when you finish. I like that in his book he almost exclusively uses Melamine particleboard to make the cabinet carcasses. which is the basic material for European style cabinets and this method also saves you a good deal of money over laminated hardwood faced plywood cabinets The melamine coating is also easy to clean and very strong, and the use of hidden hinges and adjustable legs make for easy installation, a time saving feature. There are so many pluses to buying Danny's books that there just isn't enough room to list them all here. If you really are thinking of building your own kitchen cabinets this is the book to buy.

If I could give more stars, I would. I've never built anything out of wood before, and I just finished building all my kitchen and bathroom cabinets. I did not use melamine (the author is a fan of this material), as it would not be good for resale value in my particular area. I used polyurethaned birch plywood for the kitchen cabinets, and painted MDF for the bathroom cabinets. Using the author's instructions, they turned out very well, with very little hassle. The author has a no-nonsense approach to building cabinets (e.g., using screws in a butt joint, rather than time-consuming dados/rabbets). This saved me a lot of time and hassle. Since I was a beginner when I started this project, it was especially appealing. Certain other books were overwhelming to me because of the amount of space dedicated just to joinery. I've nothing against these other methods, but it was refreshing to see that they weren't actually necessary. Given the limited amount of time I had to build quality cabinets, it was the obvious choice for me.I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to build his/her own cabinets, regardless of experience level.Also, I emailed the author to make sure the cabinets/cabinet legs would support my concrete countertops, and received a reply within 24 hours. A lot of authors will forget about the little people once they are published, but not this guy! (BTW, there was no support problems.)

I found this book clear and useful. I am building cabinets for my workshop,and its utilitarian approach is what I was looking for. If you are interested in solid wood, high end cabinets, it will prove less useful.I did find an error (I think) in the calculation for cabinet drawers in the top diagram on page 100. Mr. Proulx includes the 3/4 (or 5/8) inch thickness of the bottom of the cabinet as part of the "free space", i.e., the area where drawers can be installed. This doesn't make sense to me. I believe the free space should be 28 1/4 inch, not 29 inches (for a 3/4 inch bottom), which throws the ensuing calculations off a bit. He also doesn't indicate the one inch clearance below the bottom drawer, but it is included in the calculation.Still, this book works for me.

I've been buying books on kitchen cabinet construction in anticipation of building some cabinets for my house. This particular book doesn't really work for me:FIrst off, he's building ugly, 1970's style cabinets. The cases are melamine coated particle board with oak face frames. Overlay door and drawers. Iron-on edge banding. That is a turn-off for me. If you want that kind of cabinet it's probably cheaper to go buy them at a discount big-go home center. Or Ikea.Looking past the style and materials, there are nice pictures of the construction process he uses, dimensions and decent information to build this style of cabinet.But there is no discussion of materials and hardware and alternate construction techniques. Inset doors or drawers? Forget it. THis book is kind of a one trick pony, if you want to build this particular style of cabinet it has all the information you need. Well, most of it, he shows pictures of arched top frame and panel doors but no information on making them.I think a good book on kitchen cabinet construction should cover different materials and construction techniques for building the cases, the pros/cons of each and the tools required for different approaches. A comparison of hardware - hinges and drawer slides - is essential. Some guidance on planning the work, Bob Lang and Jim Tolpin cover this reasonably well. If you have to make a kitchen full of cabinets you need some sort of system to plan the work, organize the process and ensure you get all of the materials you need in fewer than 50 trips to the lumberyard.I gave this three stars because the material it presents is well done, but it's inadequate coverage of the topic in my opinion.