How to build a shaker style range hood

So, we're still working on our kitchen.  Seriously.  Longest.  Reno.  Ever. (Just kidding.  We tore our basement out two + years ago).  Anyway, We're finally coming around the home stretch.  I don't have updated pictures of everything to share, but I wanted to take the time to let you all know how I went about building my range hood, because it was something that I really took a lot of time and researching to figure out how the heck to go about.

First of all, when you decide you're going to build a range hood, you're going to need two main parts- a power pack, which is the actual fan/blower/vent thing, and a hood liner.

We went with the Zephyr Tornado I.  Honestly, I bought this one because I found it on ebay used for 1/3 of it's retail price.  Since I'm kind of (really) cheap (frugal), and we don't know if we'll be selling or renting our place in a year when we leave for fellowship- and I know, I didn't tell you all about that either...soooo behind- I went the most economical route to get it done.

 

I can't find a stock picture of the liner online, but it's essentially a stainless steel box.  Here's the thing- you do actually need this.  When you cook, the grease goes up and into the bottom of this blower and surrounding area.  Without the metal liner, cleaning is going to be a pain.  On top of that, you're cooking over a wood box.  It's just safer to cover it so you're not cooking over a flammable surface.

In case you're wondering for yourself- I also tried thinking of every and any way I could make the liner myself.  Unless you are a metal worker- you can't.  Just cough up the dough, and buy the liner.

Ooookay. Now onto the building part.

The first thing I did was build a box.  I had exactly 30" between our 9" cabinet and the window, so I built my box 30" wide.  The depth is something you can play with, but keep in mind that you want it to extend over your front burners so you can essentially trap the rising steam/oil/cooking junk within the box to push it into the power pack.  Mine extends out about 22" from the wall.  I used 1x4" pine boards (in hindsight, I would've used 6" instead), which are actually only 3/4" thick, and mitered the corners.  Inside the box is a 3/4" thick sheet of plywood.  To find your measurement for the plywood, you just take your overall box size, and subtract 1 1/2" from the width and depth since you have 3/4" thickness on every side.  Don't attach the plywood until you've put your hood liner in place to fit.

Anyway- so build your box, and then put your liner in for fit.  There's a cut out in the middle of the liner where your power pack will go.  Trace that, remove the liner, and cut the shape out with a jig saw.  Then you can put your liner back in and adjust the plywood to the height inside the box it needs to be to contact the liner.  I attached my plywood to the box with my Kregg, and then I attached the entire box to the wall through the back, into the studs, and into the neighboring cabinet, and if I had a cabinet on the opposite side, I would've attached it to that too.  Once in place, you can install your liner via directions it came with, then put your power pack in.

At this point, you want to dry fit your duct work.  You can see in the photo that I had to put a slight curve on mine.  That's because we found that we have a sewer line running at a slight angle between the window and the first stud, and I wanted to be absolutely sure that I'd miss that when I went to cut this huge 6" hole.

Once I had the duct work where I wanted it, I traced around the spot on the wall.  I cut through the interior wall with a jigsaw, and drilled pilot holes through to the outside at the very top, bottom, left, and right.  When I went outside to drill the hole, I just had to line up a piece of duct up to it, trace, and cut again with the jigsaw (with a wood/metal blade).  We went through a layer of vinyl siding, the original wood siding, and the wood frame work just fine with a jigsaw, and attached the outer vent.  I did not buy the vent from the Zephyr website.  It was $40, plus tax and shipping, and it didn't even come with a damper to decrease cold/warm air movement.  Instead, I bought an $8 vent at Menards that has a grate and damper.  Perfect.  Once installed on the outside, I attached the duct work on the inside, and taped every joint with duct tape.

Now, I know you've been seeing the sides in my posts above.  I initially had decided I wanted a box shaped hood.  Then as I looked and thought, I decided that it may look too obtrusive in my little space to have an entire box extending 22" from my wall, so I decided to go with an angled design.  Obviously, this takes a little more calculation and work- but it's totally doable.  For my measurements, I measured the distance from the top of my box to the top of the spice cabinet next to it.  I marked that out on my MDF, and then marked out 12" from the top of it and 22" from the bottom.  I drew a line connecting the 12 to 22 and that was my shape.  I used the original edge of the MDF for the straight side, and cut the angle using a circular saw.  I attached a support bar to the back of the two panels, and used my Kregg to attach the panels to the box.

The next step was the face frame-- where we finally close the box in and start making it pretty!  I didn't get all fancy building rails and styles with this.  I just cut my 2 1/2" MDF boards to the right sizes and connected them with the Kregg.  When building face frames, you want to always make sure you're hiding the end of the wood.  To do this, you make your vertical pieces (stiles) the full length they should be, and your horizontal pieces (rails) the overall width minus the width of the two stiles.  I used two additional stiles in the middle, and did a little math to figure out their placement.

Here it is roughly in place.  You can see the top sticks up further than the rest of the box, and the bottom doesn't fit flush either.  I was only worried about cutting the angle on top so it was flat like the rest of the cabinetry for me to add trim to later.  To do that, I just eyeballed where it was level, marked it, and cut it with a table saw.

After it was trimmed, I added a sheet of 1/4" luan to the back using a bead of glue and some staples.  Then I nailed the face frame in place with brad nails.  The final step was to add trim around the lower box.  I used a base cap shoe molding around the edges, and a coping saw to make it fit around the windows, and to allow the cabinet door on the opposite side open and close.  Remember how I said I wished I'd used 6" boards instead?  This is why.  I didn't have a lot of room to anchor my molding on without it looking squished and silly.  So my upper molding is JUST barely covering the upper seam where the box and face frame meet (where I didn't cut an angle), and I attached the lower molding to a square piece of trim that I drove up through the bottom of the box to finish it off.

And here you can see how we've begun adding the molding to the top of the cabinets.

And here it is with all the trim/crown in place along the upper.

Painted

And the finished look in the kitchen

Hopefully if you're trying to figure out just how to build one of these bad boys yourself, you'll find some answers here!  It's really not difficult or expensive, and the look it adds to your kitchen is AMAZING.



And just to keep with my history- here's a little furniture dump for the road!

Onto the next thing,




Linking up with:
52 Mantles
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Domestically Speaking
Savvy Southern Style

Cabinets galore, and more!

Hello, Blogland!  Just a quick update.  The kitchen is still coming along.  Slowly for now.  I've mentioned my hubby's crazy work hours of 80-90 hour weeks, but in addition to that, one weekend a month is taken by the Army National Guard, and lately, the other weekend he gets off a month has been taken by traveling for fellowship interviews.  We've still been working in the little spare time we have (and at this rate, I'm starting to feel like I'll never have a completed kitchen, but we ARE still making progress!).

In March, we made a trip back over to Arthur to Cabinet Factories Outlet.  After spending all the time pulling off the veneer, I sat back and realized that anything I did to the cabinets would essentially be like putting lipstick on a pig.  It would never fix the poor structural quality of the cabinets, and for the money and time I was going to put into repairing, we may as well buy new cabinets.  And so we did.

We were able to replace all the existing cabinets for $550.  Now, the finishes are not all the same, but that doesn't concern me, as I'm still painting them (and yes, I've changed my mind on that too...they're going to be Decorator's White by Ben Moore).  I'm so thrilled, and anxious to have everything in.  We've been trying to do it one side at a time.  The pantry side is first, as it's not going to take as much configuring and plumbing.

This is where we started.  We pulled out the cabinets and found a few surprises.  We stuck some drywall in to cover the holes, but luckily the cabinets covered everything.  

Again- remember that I'm painting the cabinets, so mismatched colors were no big deal.  The space between the two glass door cabinets was a non-conventional size, and to keep the balance, I didn't want to add a filler strip to the side of the cabinet, so I built a new one to go there.

This was the first project I used my Kregg my brother gave me for Christmas, and I seriously have no idea why I didn't break that thing out sooner.  It is AWESOME, and I've used it a ton since I figured it out for this project.  Anyhow, this cabinet is going to remain open with shelves, and a TV mounted inside.  I've built the shelves, but haven't snapped a picture yet.  Don't worry.  You'll see it sometime.  :)

You might also notice a couple other changes since I last posted.  The floors and ceiling.  We spent a couple days pulling out the FIVE layers of floor, and found wood.  We were planning on tile, but I felt so guilty about laying tile over the old wood, that we decided to make the wood work.  When we first pulled the floors out, the wood was covered in a felt-like paper.  It was dirty, and ugly, and the actual removal of the paper took me about four days in my spare time.

We're planning to refinish the floors at the very, very end.  Until then, they're working okay.  The only issue is that it ends a few inches shy of the base of the cabinets on the left.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do there.  Anyone have any thoughts?  I was thinking of using baseboard molding at the bottom of the cabinets instead of a standard toe kick.  That would cover it completely and make the cabinets look more like custom built ins, but I'm not sure how to do that with the dishwasher...

Anyhow, then there's the ceiling.  We rented a drywall lift and installed a plywood beadboard ceiling.  My initial plan was to have it all sanded, primed, and painted before going up, but I didn't have time to paint before Hubs had some free time to do it, so I stopped at the priming stage in an effort to utilize the time we had and get it done!  We rented a drywall lift at Menards for $12/four hours, and I cannot tell you how much EASIER this made the job.  Seriously, it would've been impossible without it.

Last night we spent some time working on other things separately.  Hubs installed the new water and electrical for the refrigerator, and I spent hours with a pry bar and hammer and removed the brick backsplash.

I'm really not looking forward to repairing the walls.  Removing brick and mortar is NOT fun, and it is not easy.  With tile, you can get your chisel under it and in a few taps it mostly tends to fall off.  Not the brick.  It came off in tiny, tiny bits, and probably took a good 20 whacks of the hammer for each one, and after the brick was off, I still had to pry under the mortar to peel the whole thing off.  Needless to say, I'm glad that project is finished, and that side is ready for us to start on.

Other than that, I've just been working on some furniture.  I'm really into bold colors right now.

The blue/gold combo is my favorite right now.  It's such a great contrast!

Sorry for the long update.  It'd been a while, but it definitely wasn't for a lack of progress!  I'll be back soon.  I have about a million things left to show you before this room is done.  ;)

Linking up with:

Coastal Charm

My man loves fishing...

...and he'll fish for anything!  His favorite thing to fish for though are muskies.

In fact, he'd fish for them all day, everyday if he could.  Sadly for him, he's a surgeon, we live in Illinois, and it's winter, so he hasn't had a ton of time for fishing lately.

Luckily though, I have plenty of projects.  Projects that involve fishing.

*Big Smile*

For the last couple weeks we've been transforming the kitchen lighting from a three bar light over the sink, and ceiling fan...

To a single bulb in the center of the room (the light over the sink was attached to the wood valence).

And last post, I left you with this mid-work-huge-mess-picture:

Note that if you decide to rewire your kitchen in the dark (his hours don't leave us with a ton of daylight), you should stand a light up like the one pictured instead of wearing a headlamp and running around the house with just it on.  You know, so the neighbors don't think you have burglars and call the cops-- because then you have to deal with them showing up at the door asking tons of questions.  Not that WE had anything like that happen...

Let me just tell you, rewiring the ceiling in a old house where you can't access the wiring from above is a pain.  And messy.  And sometimes scary.  Throughout this project, we've discovered knob and tube wiring, cloth wiring, and 80's no-ground wiring (wired in some CRAZY ways) all in the same room.

My sweet husband though, fisherman that he is.  He fished wired through the ceiling, through the walls, down the basement, figured out which wires were coming out of where, organized the breaker box... it's been a big job.  It's taken some time since we've been doing it all on our own around the kids, birthdays, holidays, call schedules, etc.  So it's a good thing that neither of us gets too bent out of shape over a mess, or I'd have pulled my hair out by now, BUT I'm happy to tell you all that the wires are run for the kitchen lights!

So- remember- old house, no access?  Yes.  We have a few extra holes in the ceiling.  It's not going to be a problem though, because now that the wires are all in place, we'll be working on putting a bead board ceiling up to hide them.  So, that's where we are right now.  We (eh erm, he) still has to wire the light in the pantry, and run a separate wire to the microwave and refrigerator, and put the under cabinet lighting in, but these projects are small compared to how much work the ceiling lighting was.  So we're trucking along.  Slow, and steady- but progress is progress, and I'm so proud of all the fishing the hubs has done for us so far.


Talk to you soon,

The Nook

When we started this kitchen movement, there was a nook area in the kitchen.  It was a strange, four foot long section of counter top, floating above nothing.  I think whoever put it in intended for it to be a breakfast nook, but really- who wants to sit and stare at a wall?

Not to mention that it takes up a lot of space in a small kitchen- and as you can see, we could really use the storage.  Also, I love having an excuse for making hubs clear a space in the office for the dogs.  Dogs in the kitchen= dog hair in the kitchen, and that's no good.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to best utilize this space.  The trouble with it is that the whole area is recessed about 15 1/2" from the rest of the kitchen.  I toyed with the idea of building a small cabinet next the the refrigerator to allow the doors to open fully without hitting the edge of the base cabinets, and following this tutorial from Young House Love to build the refrigerator in, and then putting a lower cabinet in with drawers, and open shelves above on the right side.  The problems with this was that, while I could probably build the small utility cabinet, I couldn't build the doors...and I couldn't find anyone who would make them to come close to matching what we had for less than $120 per door.  We would have needed four doors, plus supplies to make the cabinet boxes, and the purchase price of a refrigerator cabinet and base cabinet with drawers at around $550 on it's own, and shelves above that.  After all that, having it sit back so much further than the other cabinets would have left it in the shadows, and made it look terribly out of place.

Then I went on to thinking of pantry cabinets.  These would be practical.  Lots of storage, and I can use them to hide the funny recess.  The only downside I could think of is the loss of counter top space, but really, when we get down to it, the only thing I used the counter space previously was to store more junk that we didn't have room for in any of our other cabinets already.

I spent a few days at cabinet shops, big box stores, and online pricing pantry cabinets and figuring out options.  The cheapest that I could come up with locally was $2300, and that was for cabinets that would come close to matching, but wouldn't really match our existing ones, and were basic boxes with shelves inside.  I know cabinets are expensive, but ouch!  That was more than I wanted to spend...especially since they wouldn't be "perfect" and the entire kitchen project started out with the idea that I would "just" paint the cabinets.  Then the idea came to me that I may be able to head over to the Amish community about an hour and a half away and have some cabinets made to match.

(Love seeing these signs when you get into Amish country)

I googled kitchen cabinets in Arthur, IL and found that there existed another one of my favorite types of stores.  A warehouse.  Oh em geeeeee!  Cabinet Factories Outlet carries warehouse overstocks, cancelled orders, misordered product, and factory overruns at wholesale pricing.  They have everything on hand, and assembled.  You just pick out what you'd like, buy it, and take it home that day (or within 7 days).  Does this sounds similar to another place I found on my current kitchen hunt?

Friday I went to scour the warehouse, and I found some pantry cabinets that will work!  They weren't 100% what I was planning for, but I was able to get ALL of the cabinetry for the entire nook area (plus a pull out mixer stand for inside a base cabinet) at 28% of what the other quotes were ($630 with tax!). I came home and drew it out to scale, and I think it will look fine. The pantry cabs on the right are full pull outs with cookie sheet organizers in the top, and a 6 place wine storage block on top them, and the one on the left has drawers behind the lower door, and an open storage area up top. They are 24" deep, so I'll have to affix 3 inch blocks behind them to studs to be able to attach them to the walls, and leave them flush with the existing upper cabinets (which makes it a perfect depth to make it look like we have a cabinet depth refrigerator, even though we don't).

I'm so glad it's all coming together.  Today the Hubs has been working on changing the wiring around to add more lights.  Just to give you a little insight on the horror of renovation...this is what my kitchen looks like at this very moment.

Yikes.  Check back soon to see how it's going!

Guess what??

This last weekend, the hubby and I took a little trip to Chicago.  We ended up picking up our counter tops and sink for the kitchen remodel at Ikea!

I'm so excited.  After measuring and deciding we wouldn't be able to fit it, we went with the Ikea double bowl Domsjo sink anyway.  

(Nervous laugh)

Hubby liked the look much better than the single bowl that I had decided we were going to get.  Okay, I like it way better too, but I was trying to ensure fit and save money.  We found out that the 36" space required for the double bowl is only for the front apron that extends out of the cabinet, and that the actual bowl space in the counter is 34 and some odd inches.  It should fit.  I'm nervous.  Hubby says he doesn't care what the cabinets measured, we'll make it work.

Lilyfield Life

We also decided on the oak butcher block counter tops.  This was hub's choice as well.  I couldn't decide which type of wood would be best for us, and he liked oak, so oak it is.  (And he says it's always whatever I want that goes.  Pshhh.)

********

I also have to tell you about a place we found.  Okay, really, a lot of you probably already know about it- but since we live in a small town area that doesn't have a ton of options for buying big items, this was like a lightbulb, revalation, "ahhhhhhh" moment when I found out.

Sears Outlet.

Oh my gosh- this place is the scratch and dent mecca of appliances.  Seriously.  I took this picture of the hubbs when we finally made it to the end of all the refrigerators.

I'm just going to guess, but I'd say there were at least 200 refrigerators on the floor, plus ranges, microwaves, dishwashers, washers and dryers, mattresses-- Sears, outlet form.  And everything came with their original warranties. A-mazing.

No lie.  I love the scratch and dent section in Lowe's.  I'm a perfectionist- no doubt about that- but I'm also frugal as frugal can be.  I don't care about a dent on the side of a range that's not ever going to be seen because it's recessed next to my cabinets and walls.

Sure, this place has a lot of appliances with very obvious dents and scratches, but it also has a lot that have minor dents.  It also has some brand new, still in the box appliances that are super deeply discounted.  Example- Stainless Maytag 25 cu ft. 4-door fridge w/easy access refrigerator drawer- currently selling for $2500 at Sears.  Sears Outlet price was $1500, plus they had a sale for an extra 10% off the day we happened to stop it.  Awesome right?!

We didn't buy that one.  It was a little small for the space that we have, and again- Hub's motto is go big or go home, and he wanted bigger...but it's always what I want, and he just does what I say, riiiiiggght? *wink*

So, we found this refrigerator.  It's a 31 cu ft Kenmore Elite.  And I sort of love it.

This refrigerator retails at $3800.  That's INSANE.  I would love, love, love to have a professional kitchen someday full of high end appliances like Viking, Wolf, Jenn-Air, but the el cheapo in me cannot justify spending that amount on an appliance, or even the amount of a kitchen full of brand new consumer grade appliances at this point in our lives, which is why I have been saying that we couldn't do stainless steel in our kitchen right now.

Guess what though?  We bought this fridge!!  We found one that had a couple dents on the side (which will be totally concealed), and has a couple light scuffs on the upper right door that I'm really crossing my fingers I'll be able to buff out with some Bon Ami or Bar Keepers Friend.  We bought it for 65% off the retail price.  Woot woot!

I'M GOING TO HAVE STAINLESS APPLIANCES!!

(I'm a little excited.  Can you tell?)

So- here's my lesson.  Check out Sears Outlet.  You can get an idea of stock online, but I'd highly recommend going to a store in person to purchase.  It's hard to see the little imperfections in a small picture, and you want to guarantee that you get the best one for you, at the best price.  At the store we went to, there were probably 20 of the same model refrigerator we purchased.  They are all priced differently because they all have different imperfections.

(I am not being reimbursed by Sears or Sears Outlet for this post- this is an honest review of my experience.)

All that said- work on the kitchen is on hold for a week.  Hubs is finishing up his last few days of having been on night float for two months (barf- we hate night float around here), and we have some electrical work he has to tackle before I can really knock out more of my projects.  I'm working on a custom job on a credenza for the shop (yes, local friends- this was the piece I was going to keep.  It sold before I could get it home for myself!), and it needs to be finished so I can get my focus back!

I'll be back with the finished credenza soon.

Until then,

Kitchen update

Kitchen work has begun!  I wanted to update you with progress, ideas, and decisions.

First of all, let me remind you of what we're starting with...

(Blah)

The first thing to go was the heavily ornate crown molding on the tops of the cabinets, and the valence.  It's gone.  Totally.  And you know what?  My window that's been hiding behind that thing for Lord knows how many years is SUPER cute.  I'm so glad it can be seen now.

After doing that, I noticed there were notches out of the cabinets where the valence had been.  You can see it in the picture above.  After a little more exploring, I realized that the wood color on my cabinets was not what they originally had been.  Somewhere along the life of the cabinets, someone had chosen to reface them with a plywood veneer.  It was loose, and cheap looking, and I could see the cabinets underneath were solid wood, so what did I do?  I ripped the veneer off all the upper cabinets, of course.  

Beautiful, right?

At some point, they'd been painted white.  Peeling off the veneer took a lot of the paint (ok, and maybe a small bit of the wood here and there too) off.  I'm planning to go around and strip them all now so I'm starting with a smooth finish.  This has led me to the decision that I will not be using chalk paint on the cabinets.  Nope- no quick fix for these guys.  I'm going the route of stripping, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, and sealing.  It's a lot more work, but I know it's going to be worth it, and I'm planning on working on them bit by bit.

I spent a lot of time agonizing (and making friends and family agonize with me) over paint colors.  I decided a couple times, changed my mind a couple times, bought the paint once, and went back to have it retinted, but I think I finally have the colors chosen.

The trim is Valspar Ultra white in gloss (I can't show you a sample of this, because it doesn't show up online!  It's essentially the same as the white on your screen.  Really bright and crisp).

Walls will be Olympic paint's Garlic Clove in Satin finish.

It's very light.  Without having the ultra white next to it, it would work as a white itself, but it has a nice, subtle contrast to it.

I'm still agonizing over the cabinets.  I really, REALLY want stainless appliances and crisp white cabinets, but new appliances are not a justifiable expense right at the moment.  Not to buy only to possibly turn around and sell our house in a year and a half.  It may help the house sell faster, but it won't help our house sell for more.  That said, I bought gray paint for the cabinets.

It's a Valspar color- Gull- in semi-gloss.

However, before I get to painting cabinets, I needed to get rid of the orange-red walls.  I gave everything a quick coat of primer, and took the ceiling fan out to prep it for paint (and just to get rid of it...it really dwarfed the space).  The pantry area in back will be worked on as well soon, but I can only handle so much junk out of place at once, and I have to completely empty the food out from the shelves to prep and paint, so kitchen first, then pantry!

I'm amazed by how much larger it looks already.  No ceiling fan.  No heavy molding.  No valence.

This weekend my mom came up and helped with the boys so I could get the molding cut.  So it's finished (mostly), and assembled.  I'm not attaching it until the cabinets are stripped and ready for paint, so I still have a small piece of trim to cut and attach to hide the seams, and caulk around any gaps.

It's coming along nicely, and I'm planning to provide you with instructions on cutting and assembling the molding.  It took me a lot of searching around the web to figure it out.

Here's a final progression of pictures to show you the changes over the last week without scrolling.

I'm so excited about this project!  I'll be back with more updates soon!