Truly A Work in Progress...

Progress is being made...slowly.

When we ordered the cabinets and all their component pieces John and I considered putting the unit on legs making them look more like furniture but this created a whole new can of worms. How do you brace the bottom? How big should the legs be? How far in should the legs go?
Our design consultant, Coby, thought he had the answer, instead of legs how about using a component piece called a pilaster. A pilaster is a flat piece of finished wood, about 3" wide by 3/4" thick and comes in 8 foot lengths. The pilaster that we ordered has a slightly rounded front edge to it. It arrived with our shipment and all that was required was to figure out how to attach it to the base of the cabinets.

Photo above...One of the tall end cabinets with the crown molding attached. If you look at the crown, you may see that there is a bit of a profile that juts out just a little from the molding and the cabinet top, this is the front of the pilaster...which was suppose to have gone on the bottom of the cabinet.

How to install never entered our minds while we talked with Coby but when the cabinets got to the stage where the pilaster came into the picture John and I were baffled. If we attached them to the front and side bottoms of the cabinet what happens to the back end of the cabinets ? How would you possibly be able to shim the back of the units to keep them from rocking backwards ? How do you support the interior cabinets ? Without support wouldn't the two inner cabinets tend to droop like a sway backed horse ? Then there were all those angle cuts that would have to be made to fit the pilaster neatly and attractively around all the zig-ins and zag-outs of the cabinet bases. After many hours of brainstorming we reluctantly decided to ditched the idea of using the pilasters and sat them aside to be returned.

Photo above...Close up of mitered corner of crown molding...it still needs to be caulked.

Then we got to the crown molding. It was not like the previous crown that we installed at the top of our dinning room cabinets; this crown looked identical to the crown molding you would use between wall and ceiling. A cabinet is not designed the same way nor has the same angles that you would find between a wall and ceiling. So, how to attach ? Again much brainstorming ensued. Seems the last crown we had ordered came with a flat base attached to it, making the job of installing it to the tops of the cabinets much easier. Finally we decided to attach the crown molding to that rejected pilaster that we had not yet returned. The pilaster would act as a base for the molding and would be far simpler to attach to then the narrow edges of the cabinet tops.

Photo above...taken of the top of the cabinet, a place that no one sees and is very seldom dusted. Notice the larger flat board ? That is the pilaster to which the crown molding is attached by way of tiny custom made angle brackets. I think my hubby is incredibly ingenuous, yeah I know, I'm rather biased.

Photo below...It's a bit fuzzy but you can see the profile that the pilaster added to the simple crown. The pilaster is the piece below the crown that juts out a little and transitions from the crown to the top of the cabinet. I really like this added detail.

This did work, though it required the addition of some very small angle brackets, which John had to custom make as there was nothing available in the tiny size that was necessary. Nothing is ever as easy as you think it's going to be and if it is...well it's not nearly as interesting.

Photo below...And this is what it looks like with its crowning glory...no drawers or doors yet and the base cabinet still needs its top put on. But it's progressing...