Storage Space from Nothing – the Medicine Cabinet (Part 1)

Older homes like ours (built in 1886) often present challenges around storage space as they often do not have the type or volume of storage space that are common in modern builds. Sometimes, even when space seems available, it can be an illusion. Take, for instance, one of the closets on our second floor in between the master bedroom and the girls room.

Looks great – access to storage just outside the door to two of the bedrooms! Unfortunately, when you open it up, you realize things aren’t quite what they seem.

It turns out that the space behind this door is only, at best, minimally useful. A previous owner had built a closet into the girls room by utilizing this space so it is not a complete loss from a storage point of view. The raw cedar that you can see in the pictures is the outside of the closet box from their room that cannibalizes the space from the original closet.

So, what to do? With only about 5 inches to play with from the surface of the cedar box to the front of the closet door stop, there weren’t a lot of options. Still, rather than write it off, I decided to utilize the space to make a large medicine cabinet. The shallow depth becomes a benefit as it makes it easy to see what is what when there are a lot of small bottles and boxes being stored there.

Prepping Stock

The first step was to prep some lumber for the job. I have a lot of pine boards laying around as the result of some significant work that I had to do in replacing balcony decking that the previous owner had installed inappropriately. I’m a huge fan of using reclaimed lumber so, rather than throw stuff out during demolition, I hang onto anything that may be useful.

While their condition certainly made it challenging to re-use them for anything stain grade, they were a fine option for the medicine cabinet, which would be painted. After a couple of hours of jointing, planing, and cutting to size, I had the stock ready to go.

If you wondering about the clamps, when I know that I won’t be assembling things right away, I like to clamp the stock to limit any warping. I’m not sure that it actually makes a difference but, in my mind at least, I feel better about it. To round things out, I did need to pick up a sheet of 1/4″ plywood at the box store. Again, no need for anything fancy as it would ultimately be painted.

Cutting Rabbets

The structure of the case is pretty simple. The top sits on rabbets with midpoint and bottom shelves sitting in dadoes in the side panels. The back would then fit into a 1/4″ rabbet cut into the back of the sides and top.

I start with cutting the sides to length.

A Tale of Two Rabbet Planes

The next step was to clamp the sides down and run the rabbet into their back edge. To do this, I pulled out my handy dandy Stanley 78. This is a straight blade rabbeting plane that just works. Worker examples like mine can be had for not much money from antique dealers or ebay. You can read more about them on Patrick Leach’s excellent website.

So it would seem that I have my game together – using reclaimed wood and reconditioned Stanley planes to keep costs down. However, I’ve not always been this conscientious and, in my past, have fallen prey to the siren song of the new, shinier offerings in this space. As a result, I also have a left and right pair of the excellent, though not cheap, Veritas skewed rabbet planes. With the 78 around, they have actually seen almost no use since I got them. However, running long rabbets in pine seemed like a perfect time to pull them out and get them into service.

As I said earlier, the Stanley 78 just works – full stop. The Veritas planes also just work, but even better than the 78, which is very high praise coming from me. Part of it is the better two post fence mechanism that keeps the plane square to the cut and part of it is the skew blade that pulls the plane into the fence as you cut. Of course, because we are talking about skew blades, this temporary infatuation will evaporate come sharpening time. The straight blade on the 78 is dead easy to put an edge on and not too fussy about being exactly square – I doubt it will be as painless with the Veritas.

Cutting Rabbets With the Grain

With the positive feeling still firmly in place, I started cutting my rabbets. The skew angle of the blade results in the most lovely spiral shavings that run the length of the board.

For those of you who are reading all this and thinking “why didn’t I just run the rabbet on my router table?”, you have clearly not used a good rabbet plane before. Setup takes only moments and with only a subtle noise, similar to the tearing of paper (no earplugs needed), the job is done. In the end, you have a perfect rabbet and only a pile of springy shavings to collect. No dust, no fuss, all good. The sense of satisfaction is palatable.

Cutting Rabbets Across the Grain

Cutting rabbets with the grain was so much fun, I thought I’d keep it up with the cross grain rabbet for the top. Turns out that while this works, it is not nearly as neat and clean. You need to use the nicker to sever the fibers as you are forming the rabbet. On hardwood, this works pretty well. Unfortunately, likely due to my particular technique, there seems to be just enough spring in softwood to make this not work nearly as well in pine.

With pine I find myself constantly re-cutting the cross grain edge by hand and so alternate between plane and knife (or chisel), which just slows things down. Hind site is 20/20. I should have done the cross grain rabbet with a saw and router plane as I did with the dadoes below.

Cutting the Dadoes

I like cutting dadoes. Not sure why but there is something satisfying in the outcome. Not sure my technique is the best but it work for me so here goes. First step is to cut the edges of the dado with my marking knife. I do this directly from the piece that will be fitted to the dado, the shelf in this case.

Next is to cut just inside the knife lines to depth with my giant back saw.

For those of you wondering why the back saw is so long, it is from a vintage Stanley miter box. Initially I found it hard to keep the saw square. I’ve got that in hand now and find the length of stroke I can take really speeds things up. It also makes judging the registration of the blade to the intended cut easier.

The next step is to hog the waste out with a sharp paring chisel.

Finally, I clean the dado up to finished depth using a router plane.

I use the Veritas version of the router plane. The vintage Stanley 71s work without question, but the depth adjustment is somewhat more of a pain than what is offered with the Veritas. Given that a new Veritas is not significantly different than what a good worker Stanley is going for, I erred on the side of ease. My opinion only, of course.

If everything is done correctly, the shelf should slip right in. Luckily that was the case here.

Next step, assembling the case and dealing with the shelves.

Part 2 of this build can be found here.

Zero Clearance Insert For My Table Saw

I decided, somewhat on the spur of the moment, that I would finally make the zero clearance insert for my table saw that I have been meaning to make for years. It is something I should have done long ago, not so much for the reduced tear out when cutting sheet goods as for the increased safety of preventing thin off-cuts from falling in along the blade.

It turned out to be pretty straight forward though there were a few gotchas. For those that are interested, here is the process that I followed:

Sizing the blank

The first step was to cut the blank. I used 1/2″ Baltic birch plywood as it is straight, stable, smooth, and slightly less thick than the metal insert that came with the saw. FYI, the saw I have is a Rigid job site saw. Its a great saw with a lock for blade depth which is something that I was unable to find in any other job site saw. That may have changed over the last number of years however.

I set the fence to cut the blank to width by registering off the original metal insert.

And checked the width of resulting blank.

I then used the original insert to mark the curved ends at the end of the blank. The cuts on the end of the blank were made on the band saw followed by a disk sander and file to smooth and finish the edges.

I then test fit the new insert into the saw. It looks like it doesn’t fit but that is just because, on this specific saw, the blade doesn’t actually go down far enough to allow the new insert to sit fully in place.

Cutting the slot and additional features

In order to fully check the insert fit, I had to fire up the saw and have the cut driven up into the new insert.  The result fit so well that I couldn’t easily remove it again so I also added a finger hole to pull it up and out if needed. Another requirement was cutting a keyhole at one end to accommodate the screw that holds the insert in place in the table top.

Leveling the insert

Its not really clear in the pictures above but, even though the insert is actually thinner than the original plate, it was still sitting proud of the table top. It turns out the that the trunnion assembly actually sits slightly closer to the top of the table than the rests for the insert that are molded into the table top. With the original insert, this wasn’t an issue as it was full thickness only at the edges. As the new insert is a constant thickness, it made contact with the trunnion assembly (seen to the left of the blade in the picture below) before it made contact with the insert supports.

The answer, while not elegant or pretty, was to use a chisel to remove a layer of the insert on the bottom side to provide the necessary clearance. If I make another insert in future, I may use a router to do a cleaner job of it. For now, it is on the bottom of the insert so not visible when installed.

As a result, the insert now sat level but below the level of the table. In order to correct this, I used the same strategy as in the original insert. I drilled 4 holes, one in each corner of the insert, and threaded them to accept grub screws.

With the screws in place, I am now able to adjust the insert to bring it up flush with the table. I also rounded over the edges just slightly to avoid any interference as stock moves over the insert during sawing.

Finished Product

That’s it – the insert is now installed and working great. I actually made a second one as well in case I need to either do dado stack or angled work with the saw, either of which would destroy my straight insert.

If I do this again (which I might now that I have the bugs worked out), I think I may use stock that has a composite surface to reduce friction and improve the finished look. But, for now, things work great so there is no rush on a replacement.

Thanks for reading!

Bathroom Renovation Final Photos

Well, after much too long a hiatus, I am finally posting the finished pictures of the bathroom renovation. I should say almost finished as Heidi is still looking for the perfect grey towel set to go with the room. All the important stuff is in place though so I feel confident sharing the pictures.

One thing to note is that unlike the earlier photos that were taken with my phone, these pictures were taken by a bonafide photographer as a result of an article that is being published in the our contractors magazine.

People interested in seeing the full renovation process as tracked in this blog should start here.

The Before…

After the Renovation…

The room is bright – very bright – and clean looking but still in keeping with the an aesthetic that is appropriate to an 1886 Victorian home. It has quite clean lines but still some more fanciful accents such as the towel hooks that are placed in various strategic positions around the room.

Liberty acrylic faucets hooks from Home Depot

I’d like to say that I have a favorite thing about the finished renovation but, in truth, there are many.

Fixtures

The fixtures are a mixture of Grohe and Sign of the Crab. Although they are from different manufacturers, the styles and the chrome finishes are extremely compatible. I’m not sure that you’d be able to tell they are not from the same suite unless they were sitting right side by side.

Sign of the Crab model P1049N – thermostatic faucet
Sign of the Crab model P1049N – shower head and hand shower
Grohe Seabury 8″ wide spread faucet in Starlight Chrome

Tiling

The Tiling is a combination of 3″x6″ subway on the walls and 1″ hexagonal on the floor. The grout is Mapei Pearl Grey on both the walls and floor. While the floor is all standard tile, the walls incorporate specialty tiles such as chair rail at the top and baseboard at the bottom.

Subway and chair rail in Arctic White by Daltile
Subway and baseboard in Arctic White by Daltile
1″ white hexagonal tile by Urban Zebra

We used curved edge tiles on edges and corners as metal border edging would not be in keeping with the age of the house.

Vanity

The vanity and the matching mirror are custom builds from Olympia cabinets utilizing traditional line maple doors with “Cigar” stain.

Finally, the counter top is a cultured marble top by Caesarstone. Not real marble but, as a result, will be much lower maintenance given it is being used by 3 soon to be teenage girls.

Lighting

The lighting in the bathroom is handled by fixtures by Seagull Lighting with schoolhouse style shades.

4 fixture “Academy” vanity light by Seagull lighting
“Academy” medium semi-flush fixture by Seagull Lighting

Well, I think that is about it for the new and improved bathroom. Now on to the 50+ other things that need to be done with the house. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

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