Faux Wood Finish on Fridge

We had been working so hard on things last week we were not too good about getting things up onto the blog so we will be playing catchup for a little bit to let everyone know what we were working on. The base color was a lighter brown and the faux wood finish is done with a dark brown paint mixed 1:1 with a glaze. Here you can see that just one of the front panels is complete.

To complete the look for the rest of the fridge we had to tape off and complete each section individually.

You can see the faux graining of the wood up close. This was done by painting the glaze mixture on with a brush and then almost immediately removing it from the surface with a paper towel.

Not much left to glaze here. As you can see the whole unit has become quite a bit darker.

Once all of the graining was complete on the cabinet a coat of urethane was placed on top to give it some protection and cleaning ability.

Historic Home Tour - Showing our home

Our house was on the Historic Everett Home tour this weekend so we have been working hard the past week (with the help of Kristen's parents) to get everything cleaned up and all of the tools moved up to the shop.

We also had a long list of items that got worked in each room to get the house in working order. 

Here are a couple of the pictures of what it looked like just before we had around 300 people come through and check out what we have been working on the past two years. We are going to rest for a couple of days and then back to work on the backyard project.

 

Fridge bottom trim and more cabinet trim

 We're still not 100% finished with the refrigerator and have been working on the base.

 This will slide underneath the box-like structure to give it some feet and support. This will also help in making it look like a piece of furniture. Kristen got to try out the new sander to hit some of the inside curves.

 The cabinets over by the sink are continuing to come along. Tyler worked on the area around the dishwasher which is a little tricky because the door needs to open. We also did not permanently attach it in case a new dishwasher needs to be installed at some point in the future. The trim is held together with L brackets and is removable (though not easily).

 Here you can see the dishwasher door pivoting open and the trim staying in place. It looks normal when the door is in the closed position.

Kitchen Overview

Here are a few pictures of the kitchen in general so you can get an overview of how things are coming.

Fridge Door Handles

Kristen and I have been looking around for some larger door handles that we liked for the fridge without much luck. Then Kristen found one that she liked online....but they were $400 a piece, yikes! Here is a picture of if.


So I thought that it would not be too hard to replicate them. I purchased a bunch of separate parts from a lamp supplier and ended up making these handles up. Here are all of the pieces.



Here is what they look like put together and placed on top of the doors that are still waiting the last coat of paint.


It all is centered around a central threaded rod. There is still a little bit of work in gluing up and bonding the pieces together.

Update on the Fridge

It seems like this darn fridge should be done by now?

We'll it's not quite there but getting closer every day. I guess that we are just getting too distracted by the warm weather and want to work on some outside projects.

The trim is finally going up on the top. Here you can see a picture that shows the piece off gooseneck molding being glued up as well as the top trim beam that goes around the door when it is in place.


The return moldings were also formed and put in place.

Yikes, time to drill some more holes in the fridge. This time they are for attaching the two piano hinges that attach the actual fridge door to that of the unit.


Now time to get those doors fit and up in place. The doors attach in two places; to the side L shaped piece that was put in a long time ago and the edge of the actual existing fridge door

The edge of the doors were trimmed and a small rabbit was cut into them to fit the hinges. Great chance to use that old rabbit plane that has been just collecting dust.
So here is how the door gets mounted to the L shaped panel. The end that is just floating free is the one that is cut with the rabbit that will attach to the piano hinge. You can see those hidden barrel hinges attaching the L piece with the rest of the unit.


This is a picture of what the door looks like installed and open a little. You can see where the piano hinge interfaces the fridge and unit doors. You can also see the other door that has its hinge but does not have its panel on yet.


So here it is with the door panels fit and hung and the bottom panels just resting in place with tape. The next step will be to figure out what we want to use for hardware and to take it all apart and put the finish onto it.

Fridge Trim

I worked a little last weekend on the gooseneck molding for the top of the fridge. It all starts with a couple pieces of popular that have been flush cut to a pattern on the router table.

After this I set up my router to act like a "pin router". This means that there is a ball bearing on the top that my piece runs against. You can see in this picture the ball bearing for the pin router as well as the 2" ball router bit. I have done one pass when this picture was taken.

The bit is moved up over the course of multiple passes. Eventually a 1" radius cove is formed. This is them cut on the back side to the correct height for the molding. Here is a picture of the two finished profiles before glue up and alignment of the back.


Glue up of the molding pieces.


This is what it will look like on the final piece. Obviously the back has not been trimmed and the ends have not been mitered up yet. But, getting closer.