Carpentry and Woodworking - Desperately need help with kitchen cabinets.

Please excuse the long post. I am trying to redo my kitchen cabinets for my wife who is disabled. She was in an accident that cost her both arms above the elbows. Although this is for a disability the main problem is increasing spacing. The kitchen is a 10' x 10' kitchen with a decent amount of overhead storage but almost no base storage. To fix this I bought a GE under sink dishwasher. This will enable me to open up 12 cubic feet of lower storage that Sylvia can access. I was originally planning on using the original cabinets but they are made of composite wood (MDF) and have severe water damage which has caused them to swell. I had 2 contractors come to our house and received quotes between $10000-$15000. This is way out of my price league. Lowes and Home Depot seem to only carry cabinets made from laminated MDF. I am not willing to use these considering the current condition of my cabinets. I am attempting to build the cabinets myself. I have never done this before but I consider myself fairly handy and can do many things with proper direction. I could use some serious advise as to how to begin. If anyone has detailed plans they are willing to share it would be a big help. If anyone has any other advise I would appreciate it very much. Thanks, Dave

Dave,

Welcome to the forums.

Sorry to hear about your unfortunate situation.

This website has a section on building kitchen cabs. The link is below...

Building Kitchen Cabinets | DoItYourself.com (http://www.doityourself.com/scat/buildingcabinets)

I just did a Google search for "building kitchen cabinets" and it came up with a lot of stuff. You may get a lot of useful info there. At least it's a start. There are plenty of books that can help you as well.

Although kitchen cabinets may look easy, they are not the best project for a novice woodworker's first project.

Take a look at the search results, and see if it helps.

Norm Abrams (New Yankee Workshop) just did a mulitple week show on building kitchen cabinets. Check out his web site there might be something there. The advice I would offer is to get a pocket hole jig it will make face frames a snap to build. One other thing would be to let Home Depot design them for free then working off the picture they give you, you will then have an idea of what you are doing. I don't know how to post pictures here but if you want to send me a private message I can send you a picture of a project I did using old cabinets and rebuilding them as needed.

Thanks for the info. I will look into all of this. Though, not related to my current project, I discovered "$10000 In Your Hand" on the DIY Network and learned a lot about framing and hanging dry wall which will help later when I begin building much needed closets in our master bedroom.

http://picklemedia1.scrippsnetworks.com/pickle_media1/media/HGTV/090917/Photo_Video_191823748_medium.jpg?0

http://picklemedia1.scrippsnetworks.com/pickle_media1/media/HGTV/090917/Photo_Video_8623750_medium.JPG?0

These are a couple pictures I posted on HGTV's website. Basicly I am swapping the 36" under sink base cabinet with the dishwasher and 12" base cabinet. I have not decided if I want to use a blind cabinet like I have now or go with a lazy susan in the corner.