- Making of an toilet-cabinet
Whole project was started by the fact that our toilet is really small. Certain issues such as the location of heat-radiator at the other side of the toilet's wall made it impossible to move any light-weight walls. Well, people before us have been able to do their needs there so maybe we could too... We would need an cabinet, depth max. 30cm (11,8") so that it is possible to fit in front of the sink to wash your hands.
- Hardware store
rip-off -prices!
Toilet cabinets at our local hardware store costs around 400€-600€, what I thought (and wife too :) to be outrageous amount of cash from an chipboard- , basic-white -cabinet. Well the price included the sink and an faucet. But I already had them. We went to two other hardware stores to see their prices, but they were alike, so competition works?
We had the idea when we saw the huge variety of different full-wooden boards. After we compared the prices between different wooden-boards we ended up with beech size 200mm x2000mm (7,9"x78,7"). It was just the right width so that wouldn't needed to be narrow off.
Planing
After selecting the right looking wood I started to sketch the sizes to an
ordinary
notebook paper. Woodworking isn't about high accuracy plans, the main
issue is to have right measures at right places and so that they can't
be confused to one another.
Always before sawing be sure to check right measures from your plan. Notice: upright sides "eat" space from total width of the cabinet.
This should be considered before sawing, without the necessary subtraction the cabinet would not fit to the space reserved for it.
- Tip:
With your plan and measures you can easily calculate how many boards you will need.
Implementation
I don't have any "state of the art" machinery. It should not bother anyone since 100 years ago no one had any machinery at all. But I sure have one hobbyist table saw and some other tools.
Sawing:
To saw my boards I used (reviewed here also) Lutz- mitre
saw. In my opinion it is nicer to use and does straighter cut than
Biltema's circular saw.
I might have been able to saw that 20cm with Biltema's poor one. But I
didn't want
to take any chances. Wooden board might have moved jerking resulting in
poor sawing quality..
Drilling:
For drilling I used Bosch's cordless drill and Ø6mm drill.
After
a while drilling holes I found that I would need an drill press or my
drill is dull. It was that slow drilling holes to beech. I went and
bought an proper drill
(for once!) that is made by Fisch
a brad point drill equipped with carbide tip teeth(!!).
Drilling depth limiter held on to it quite well. To make sure
that the drill was perpendicular I used drilling jig, since I
had no drill press. By the way, it wasn't very cheap to buy that drill
the price was 36€... To make the plug bevelling
I used basic beveling-drill. To make bigger holes I used Biltema's
holesaw -series. You should notice that under the sink will be an water
lock, from witch will lead an pipe to it's side.At first I didn't
ponder about it ;). Fortunately professional plumber used
extension-pipe right after the sink so that the water lock would go
under the beech board...
Sanding:
For sanding I used orbital sander by AEG and between varnish layers
I
sanded by hand. Boards that I bought were sharp from the edges so I had
to round them somehow. Without router or plane I did the whole thing
with my sander. It sure took lots of time.
The groove for shelf-holders were made with Dremel Multi, I couldn't think any better way of doing it.
Dust extraction
Dust extraction was accomplished by using Kärcher's smalest possible vacuum cleaner. Without it I would have choked in sanding dust. Between sanding of varnish layers I vacuumed by using bristle head. I tried using vacuum with mitre saw but it didn't do really any good, as you can read from Lutz mitre saw -review. During this project I could easily see why I should buy an real dust extractor.
Varnishing
I'm quite inexperienced in varnishing. I've read some tips from books about varnishing but those books were back in the library by now. I started the varnishing from a board
which will stay against the wall. Good thing that I started that way
because something made small craters and such to the first layer of
varnish. I wonder if small particles of dried varnish had fell into the
jar where I store it? After this I washed the brush with turpentine,
some brush washing agent ja pine-soap. From internet I got an tip that
I should store my brushes in pine-turpentine or in linenoil. I chose
pine-turpentine. I dilluted the varnish into a different jar about 30%
so that all possible lumps would melt in. Then I varnished all the
other boards for several times with, this way I could get an satisfying
result.
First assembly
When I started to assemble this cabinet my wife didn't want any backboard to the cabinet. This created a new problem: how to make this cabinet sturdy? Well, back to the hardware store. I knew that I would need 90°-angle irons. Not those commonly used but those that are used in some windows. Problem at hand was to find angle irons made from brass. Fortunately I did find some, galvanized might have be seen disturbingly between the wall and cabinet. With these angle irons I intended to make my cabinet sturdy. Thank god we tested the cabinets and they didn't fitted at all! There was an barrel-like bulge at the wall which narroved the space so that our cabinet didn't fit in the place we measured. Next we had to narrow the cabinet from the left side, we didn't measure the need to narrow very accurately because we thought the measuring of the bulge to bee too challenging. We just made sure we would saw off at least enough to make the cabinet fit.
Final assembly
At the assembly stage I selected "Kiilto B3" glue
(moisture resisting assembly glue). Unpredictable problen was the size
of wider part of this cabinet. The width of this lower part was 90cm
and we didn't have clamps big enough to clamp them together. I was
seconds away of losing my temper
-> I had been spreading the glue all around those plugs and
plug-holes... Fortunately enough I could pimp my clamps into the inner
vertical boards and to the holes in the board for waterpipes
which made it possible to clamp all the boads together. At the same
time we attached those angle irons.
The end result
Afterall the end
result is in our oppinnion good and satisfying. We allso saved
some money by doing it ourself. But it sure took lots of time making
it. So I wont quit my dayjob just yet.Money we spended accordinly:
| Beechboards | 6x18,90€=113,40€ |
| Varnish | 24€ |
| Brushes | 2x9€=18€ |
| Glue | 12,50€ |
| Tap | 20€ |
| Sink | 90€ |
| All together | 277,90€ |
So if hardware store would charge 500€ was the sawings 221,10€
(I will add removeable shelves and doors later on)
-Hardware store prices
-Implementation
-Endresult