Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - Kitchen cabinet above fridge -- can I cut out the stile?

I am refacing my kitchen cabinets, and I did not buy doors for the cabinet over the fridge, preferring to leave it open since I can't reach it anyway and it's awkward to open doors from the stepstool. This way I can use it as a cookbook shelf.

The cabinet has a stile down the middle. Is it safe to cut it away so the entire cabinet is open and looks more like a shelf than a cabinet without doors? Or does the stile add support?

hackwriter,

Cutting out is usually ok but it also depends on what you intend to place up there for storage.

Anything heavy will effect it and a sag may occur. If this is a 30 inch cabinet, I doubt there is much concern. Anything larger may be a problem but again, weight is the issue.

Good Luck!

The cabinet is 33-1/2" wide. They are old 1950's vintage knotty pine cabinets that are original to the house, which was built in 1953. As near as I can guess, the wood used in these cabinets is 3/4 - 7/8" thick. So do you think it's OK to go ahead and saw off the stile and turn this into a shelf?

This is, of course, predicated on whether I'm capable of sawing it off, lol.

hackwriter,

Yep, cut it.

OK, will do. What kind of a saw should I use? I have a hand saw that came with a miter box, or I also bought a jigsaw to cut the plywood end panels, because I am phobic about circular saws. Which is preferable? I'm thinking the hand saw for this, followed by some good sanding.

Use a jig saw, probably easiest with a blade that is not too coarse.

You may want to check first to see if the stile is pocket screwed to the rails. It happens. But if it goes through the rail, then you would have to cut it.

Good point to keep in mind! Thanks.

Does anyone have any good ideas as to what to do with the insides of the cabinets? The walls are in good shape, but the floors of the cabinets are kind of stained and ugly. The new doors and veneers are oak, which is closer in color to the original knotty pine. When we moved in, I lined the shelves with dark wood-print contact paper to go with the ugly dark wood laminate doors (photo here: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/397/497/1600/oldcabinets.jpg), but I'd like to do something nicer. Painting the interiors sounds a) daunting; b) messy and toxic (oil-based paint?) and c) not optimal due to potential chipping. Does anyone have any good ideas about shelf liners that aren't plastic and hideous? Even though my house is a 1950's Cape Cod, I'm going for an Arts & Crafts effect so I'd like to do something natural. I was thinking of using a cork shelf liner, but will that get hideous with grease over time?

A simple approach would be to simply cover the existing contact paper with an attractive non-stick shelf liner. Unless you are into the time and labor to remove contact paper, its residue, and sand to prep interiors of cabinets for new finish, the shelf liner sound less daunting.

What kind of "attractive" nonstick shelf liners are there out there? I've seen cork, but I haven't seen much else. :)