Unfinished Furniture

13 years ago

I am quickly becoming involved in a lot of options for unfinished furniture.

A lot of my stuff originally came from a store which I thought was now out of business. Things like 5 6'6" tall open back mission style book cases, 4 plant stands/end tables, a pie safe, a huge chest of drawers, my teak arm chairs, a round drop leaf pedestal table, a Queen Anne side table. And 3 nice pine shelf units having pairs of drawers at the bottom and solid backs. I gave those to my brother after he lost everything in Katrina. And I kept the bookcases even though they were warped and damaged by Katrina too.

I discovered not long ago in a Google search that the old store I originally purchased everything from, is back in business in the same spot, but as a part of an Ace Hardware!

I stopped by this morning to visit David, the man I've talked to on the phone about that big chest for my new closet. It should be in town ready for pickup at the store before the end of September.

After I took the dogs to the vet, I stopped off to tell David my departure dates, and such. I was very pleased to see they had a LOT of items in stock ready to purchase. Also, he said the people they deal with can custom size products for me.

At the top of my brain was PANTRY CABINETS. They had several in stock, but none the dimensions I needed. However, THEY COULD BE BUILT TO MY SPECS. How neat is that!

What I'm thinking is to have the two pantries built as tops and bottoms, and attached in the house. That way, I would not worry about being able to stand up a tall unit if it were one tall piece. Does that make sense? I'd allow at least two inches of "fudge" room at the top, and space for a base or legs at the bottom. Should I ask for them to build a regular kitchen cabinet 4" high base as part of the base unit or not?

I want to have the shallow depth roll out drawers like the custom pantries you guys are building on here. Laying the canned goods on their sides to really use every inch of space.

I can even order the two cabs with NO finished wood on the sides, so that that expense would be removed. And since only one side would need a finished surface, plus the front, I could add the side with the beadboard wallpaper or with just beadboard panelling!

I'm very excited at what is now possible. I suppose I will go back in and take pictures of some things they have in the store, and post those. I like real wood, and a lot of the items are staining grade things, or paintable grade.

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Comments (3)

desertsteph
13 years ago
"I would not worry about being able to stand up a tall unit if it were one tall piece. Does that make sense? "

oh yeah, that makes sense! i have a tall 1 pc cabinet in here that only has a few inches at the top. can't even imagine now how i got it up! (I had to put it together here)
not sure how I can get it out of here and over to the new place. at least w/o it falling to pieces!

on the bottom - I'd look at some with and some w/o and see which you like best. will it be with/near your kitchen cabs that will have the toe kick?

it's great that you found this guy / store again and absolutely super that you can have things made to your specs!

do have a 'drawer' or 2 that have more 'height' to them than the others for canned goods. for the larger/fatter cans. you might not have many of those - like me - when there aren't that many to cook for. I sure don't buy the large sizes like i did when the kids were home! I'm usually looking for the smallest sizes now. if only I could buy a 1/2 loaf of bread too...lol!
TxMarti
13 years ago
I love unfinished furniture and wish the place where I bought my Windsor chairs was still there.

If cost is a consideration, you might call a couple of cabinet shops to compare prices before you order from the furniture store. Seems like they should be cheaper, but who knows.

Oh & your idea of stacking the two pieces instead of getting a taller unit is a good idea. I bet they'll be much easier to install that way too.
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Original Author
13 years ago
Steph sez: " will it be with/near your kitchen cabs that will have the toe kick? "

Yes, they would be in a line with the dishwasher and sink, after I knock down the wall separating the kitchen from the dining room.

I was looking at a salvage yard a few days ago. They have some 84 inch tall 24 x 24 cabs, the toe kick included in the 84 measurement. No side panels. Part of the construction is wood, part MDF of some sort, and the cost is $299 with no side panels. I could add any side panels I like. They have three equal size doors out of oak. I'm not happy with that as a choice. I think I'd be ripping them out sooner than later, and the money spent on them could go better to cabs of either solid wood or plywood. I have nothing against a sturdy plywood cabinet. Just so it does not crumble if a jar breaks and it gets wet, I'd be happy.
But the fumes from MDF sort of scare me. It could easily kill my beloved birds.

So now I'm scanning the catalog from the unfinished wood store for something that could be inexpensively adapted to my uses.

I pretty much want both pantries to be 24 inches DEEP, to match the kitchen cabinets. But they really COULD be 2 inches wider or narrower.....but staying at a standard dimension of 24 inches sounds better chance of getting standard drawers to fit them. We'll see. Don't need to be TOO TOO customized.

And I totally agree that a few of the drawers need to be pretty deep. I'd like to use only ONE of the pantries to store kitchen stuff, foodstuff. The other one I could use for my fabric and sewing supplies, maybe my sewing machine.

And I could use the beadboard panelling on the one exposed side of each pantry.....or even some of the beadboard wallpaper.

You know, it feels strange to have a job almost DONE, and not be totally exhausted or strungout or disappointed?