Back from Vacation and Making Cabinets for our Daughter

For those of you who thought I died, I didn't!  We took our annual trip to Florida for a warm up in February and then when I got back there was the honey-do list.
At least now I am doing some woodworking.
My wife promised our daughter that I would make custom cabinets for her living room and a surround for the fireplace.

This is what it looks like now.

This is what she wants it to look like.  I will just build it and install but I don't do painting.

First thing is to make a drawing of the space and what will be needed to build. I made a scale drawing of the space.  This allowed me to figure out how much lumber I needed as well.   Since she was going to paint it, the type of material was not as important so I chose poplar.

First I milled and glued up panels 12 inches wide by about 46 inches.  I have decided to use biscuits and glue to put it together.  Younger woodworkers would use a Festool Domino but I have an old biscuit joiner so that is what I am going to use.

I need to make 8 doors for the cabinets.  I use a matched set of cope and stick router bits to make the door frames.  This is typical for kitchen cabinet doors.  Below is one completed door.

One router bit puts the edge on the styles of door and the other bit puts the round over and groove for the panel.

Once the frame is made, then I make the panels to fit.  The cope and stick router bits leave a 3/8 inch groove all the way around for the panel to fit into.  The panel is made of 1/2 inch stock and a router bit puts the bevel on giving it a raised panel look.  The panel is slightly smaller that the total opening this allows for wood expansion of the solid wood panel.  The panel is not glued in. This is the way most kitchen cabinets are made. Not quite 18th century cabinet making.

Here is the first of the two assembled cabinets.  I have added an adjustable shelf to the middle of the upper space and a divider to the lower space.

I am holding a couple of the doors in place here.  Once  they are attached and sanded the cabinet will be done.

I have one more cabinet to make and then back to 18th century furniture.  This bureau desk is probably what I am going to make next.

Here is today's video: