Design your own flatpack!
Discussion
We wanted a built in storage cupboard to utilise wasted space in the far end of the downstairs loo we're currently renovating. Because there's a soil pipe coming down from upstairs and across to the loo I couldn't find anything modular off the shelf (Ikea Pax etc) that I could modify sufficiently to not just look like a wardrobe in the toilet and something bespoke by a pro was going to be over budget, so despite a lack of any experience in cabinet making (the most adventurous I've been before is build a workbench) I decided to have a go at designing my own, using this as some initial inspiration of how we wanted it to end up looking
I used Sketchup 2017 (not the browser version) to create the design and an app plugin to generate a cutting list of each panel size.
I then used Cutwrights to source the 18mm Eggar MFC for the carcass, 18mm Medite MDF sheet for the boxing, plinth, side door and filler and also a pair of their custom made MDF shaker doors. They sell by the sheet but will also do numerous cuts to size at no extra cost plus edge band and primer where appropriate for small additional cost and I even got them to drill for blum (soft close) hinges and all the shelf pins.
Everything arrived a couple of weeks later like a flat pack on steroids and I spent 3 afternoons putting it all together just before Christmas using glue plus Confirmat and regular screws with clamps and a couple of home made jigs to keep things square. Handily Cutwrights put labels on each panel based on the name you gave it on the order form so no head scratching about what bit goes where and with the 3D model to hand it was actually simpler to piece together than trying to decipher the diagrams with no words you generally get with flat pack! Thankfully there were only a couple of tiny oversights in my design but nothing visible, everything was absolutely perfect size wise and my original measurements of the room were good so nothing needed altering or tweaking other than a bit of shimming with glazing packers to make the base level on the floor.
I then painted all the front faces with 3 coats of Johnstones Chalky Furniture paint (Teal Topaz) using a small foam roller.
I still need to apply the wax sealant to the paint (not sure about that yet, I'm worried it will ruin the chalky matt appearance) and there's a couple of areas of painting that need tidying up, for some reason the plinth and some of the fillers round the sides are slightly lighter shade than the doors, they're all from the same tin of paint so not quite sure why but perhaps a difference in application thickness so will give them another coat and see how they look.
In total it took me about 5 days of effort to build/paint plus a few evenings playing around in Sketchup learning the ropes and getting the design right. Costs were about £900 including hinges, handles, screws and paint etc so still not cheap but I think it's a far better end result than anything off the shelf and I suspect we'd be looking at at least double that for a pro fitted cabinet. Costs could also be reduced by using plain 18mm MDF doors as the two shaker doors were around £250 on their own but I think they make it look far better than slab doors that size.
I used Sketchup 2017 (not the browser version) to create the design and an app plugin to generate a cutting list of each panel size.
I then used Cutwrights to source the 18mm Eggar MFC for the carcass, 18mm Medite MDF sheet for the boxing, plinth, side door and filler and also a pair of their custom made MDF shaker doors. They sell by the sheet but will also do numerous cuts to size at no extra cost plus edge band and primer where appropriate for small additional cost and I even got them to drill for blum (soft close) hinges and all the shelf pins.
Everything arrived a couple of weeks later like a flat pack on steroids and I spent 3 afternoons putting it all together just before Christmas using glue plus Confirmat and regular screws with clamps and a couple of home made jigs to keep things square. Handily Cutwrights put labels on each panel based on the name you gave it on the order form so no head scratching about what bit goes where and with the 3D model to hand it was actually simpler to piece together than trying to decipher the diagrams with no words you generally get with flat pack! Thankfully there were only a couple of tiny oversights in my design but nothing visible, everything was absolutely perfect size wise and my original measurements of the room were good so nothing needed altering or tweaking other than a bit of shimming with glazing packers to make the base level on the floor.
I then painted all the front faces with 3 coats of Johnstones Chalky Furniture paint (Teal Topaz) using a small foam roller.
I still need to apply the wax sealant to the paint (not sure about that yet, I'm worried it will ruin the chalky matt appearance) and there's a couple of areas of painting that need tidying up, for some reason the plinth and some of the fillers round the sides are slightly lighter shade than the doors, they're all from the same tin of paint so not quite sure why but perhaps a difference in application thickness so will give them another coat and see how they look.
In total it took me about 5 days of effort to build/paint plus a few evenings playing around in Sketchup learning the ropes and getting the design right. Costs were about £900 including hinges, handles, screws and paint etc so still not cheap but I think it's a far better end result than anything off the shelf and I suspect we'd be looking at at least double that for a pro fitted cabinet. Costs could also be reduced by using plain 18mm MDF doors as the two shaker doors were around £250 on their own but I think they make it look far better than slab doors that size.
Edited by LocoBlade on Monday 27th December 14:56
hyphen said:
Looks ace.
And so deserves better lighting than that single rubber band thing.
Thanks all. Haha yup the lampshade was something the wife purchased without consultation, it's actually woven reeds or something similar so not quite elastic bands but it does cast an odd mottled light, probably hides the odd roller marks in the paint though so it will do for now And so deserves better lighting than that single rubber band thing.
RC1807 said:
The cupboards look very good.
Is there a reason you didn't go up to the ceiling with the units, where you could have run the coving across the front pelmet?
(Just a thought to have avoided a dust gathering space.)
Yeh it was in the back of my mind and I actually had a piece of MDF cut for that purpose, but the coving already being in place made it awkward as I think going up to the ceiling would need coving across the boxed in section as well to look "right".Is there a reason you didn't go up to the ceiling with the units, where you could have run the coving across the front pelmet?
(Just a thought to have avoided a dust gathering space.)
LocoBlade said:
Yeh it was in the back of my mind and I actually had a piece of MDF cut for that purpose, but the coving already being in place made it awkward as I think going up to the ceiling would need coving across the boxed in section as well to look "right".
If you stuck some cheap, dimmable warm led strip lighting on top of the unit, may work well.
UTH said:
Bloody good job that!
CheersCoolHands said:
Jeremy-75qq8 said:
I use cutwright a lot. Nice people. Didn't know they did doors .
Thanks - will check next time I am there
Yep really happy with the service. It was between them and CWorkshop as they both seem to offer very similar services, I'd seen Cutwrights mentioned on Skillbuilder videos etc though and they worked out cheaper for me as they're only about 35 miles away and could deliver for around £50 rather than £130 that CWorkshop quoted. I did have one issue as the two doors they originally supplied were actually 1.5mm narrower than I spec'd which I only found out when I started to fit them. It doesn't sound a lot but would have either left a comparatively huge ~6mm gap down the middle of the two doors with my desired 3mm gaps either side, or wider 4.5-5mm gaps down all sides if I tried to even them up on the hinges to lose the gap. Fair play to them though as I gave them a call on the Monday before Christmas and they had new doors made, primed and delivered within 3 days which I thought was excellent service, as they say even the best companies can make a mistake but its how they rectify that is important and I couldn't fault them.Thanks - will check next time I am there
sunbeam alpine said:
That looks really good. Nice one!
Calite said:
That's mega, I've been hoping to do the same thing to make a low cupboard/seat for a bay window. I'm a engineer by trade so really have no excuse not to fire up sketchup or fusion 360 and get it done, these MDF cutting services seem a great idea.
Thanks both, yeh go for it! Cutwrights can apparently cut to 0.1mm tolerance so if you can design it accurately they can certainly cut it accurately!I'd say use whatever you're familiar with to design it as a lot of my time was getting familiar with Sketchup and re-doing bits I'd not done correctly first time round. It does have some odd (and occasionally infuriating) ways of doing things that take a bit of time to get familiar with but once you've got the basics its reasonably easy to work with. As mentioned in my original post, I used the Sketchup 2017 Make app that's the last free Windows app before the free version went browser based, removing support extensions with it which I needed for the cutting list etc. You can still download 2017 Make from their website though https://help.sketchup.com/en/downloading-older-ver...
Andeh1 said:
They look brilliant! Well done.
How did you get on with learning the software? Any tips or advice on where to start?
Cheers, I just watched a few Youtube videos such as this one https://youtu.be/rKhRDvpn_DU and tried to follow along to get a feel for it, there are a few woodwork specific tutorials as well that were useful. How did you get on with learning the software? Any tips or advice on where to start?
I'm by no means an expert but off the top of my head here's a few things I wish I'd picked up from the start...
- Get familiar with the orbit and pan tools to change viewing angles etc
- I found it easier to draw parts in free space (you draw in 2D initially then extrude to make it a 3d looking object) but then once you've done that you need to make them into a component before dragging into position and refining the size, rather than try and draw everything in situ. That's because if you don't get all the lines for each part grouped together as a component they remain as a bunch of individual lines that can't be easily adjusted together. Also if you try and select all the lines to make a component whilst adjoining parts are nearby it's easy to accidentally select elements of that part as well and you end up in a right mess as soon as you try and change the model etc.
- Get into the habit of using layers to easily hide the walls/floor etc and keep distinct parts of the design separate from each other.
- Save regularly - Probably just me but a couple of times I'd hide a component so I could see past it to work on something else then it wouldn't unhide again when selecting the unhide all option. No idea why.
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