Cabinets
I design and build everything from simple melamine storage cabinetry to complex hardwood built-ins. While I've probably done more painted built-ins than anything else, my preference is natural wood.
For some examples of my cabinetry, see Built-ins and Furniture. The project descriptions contain information on design, materials and construction. I'll use this page to provide more general and detailed information about my cabinets - design, specifications, features, options, etc.
If you have any questions, please Contact me.
Grain Matching
Weather solid wood or veneer, selecting and making use of the patterns in the wood can have a huge impact on a cabinets overall appearance. The bigger the project the more complicated it can get. Veneered sheet goods are available sequentially matched which means the veneer is from the same tree and that the colors and patterns will be fairly consistent.
The goal is to find a pattern that is balanced and can be repeated. With doors a flame looking pattern is common. The image shows one possible layout for a pair of doors, the flame pattern is reasonably centered. The alternative layout, while it would have made better use of the material (less waste), is unbalanced and has a noticeable secondary pattern.
Getting a matching and balanced pair of doors is fairly easy. Getting side by side pairs to match can be tricky because the pattern needs to be similar in both height and width. In this case I needed three similar pairs and the layout was fairly easy.
Grain matching can be costly because it results in more wasted material. In this case centering the flame pattern left me with two long narrow pieces instead of one wider piece that could have been used for shelves. The waste from the height-wise matching was relatively insignificant.
While some projects work out better than others, I will never do a pair of doors with both unmatched color and grain. For comparison, see one of the book-matched matched pairs from the above layout.
Flexwood veneer cutting and matching
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