Bottomless Hutch Cabinets

Welcome back to our home renovation. This time I’m going to make the hutches, one in the kitchen and one in the pantry, which rest directly on the countertops. I have not concerned myself with these two pieces at all yet, because I can’t install them until the countertops are here. But those countertops are now being processed, so it’s time to work on these. 

Here are the plans for the pantry hutch, which already has the plywood box pieces cut, because we made those with Donavan’s CNC. So I need to paint those and get the bus bars for the under-shelf lighting installed. Then I need to make the face frame. 

These are the plans for the unit in the kitchen. It’s a giant upper section with five doors, which I’m going to make as one giant unit. A couple details I want to point out: the doors on the upper section are all hinged in one direction, and are set up for putting things away. 

These hutches are built basically the same way as the uppers I made for the rest of the kitchen, In cross section they have pretty much the same setup. The lower rail is turned on its side to create a nice little ledge, and then there is the electrical chase detail at the bottom. The plug mold is at the back and the under-cabinet lighting at the front. 

In the shop now, I’m making some stock for the face frames to get that out of the way.

 

Getting the face frames laid out now.

I’ve cut all of the mortises and now I’m getting the screw holes set up, which is a lot easier to do now than when things are all assembled. This also helps me make sure that everything is correct, so that there’s no surprises when it’s time to do the final install of the doors.

Now it’s time to do the glue up, and then the face frame will be done at that point. While this is curing, I have plenty of paneling to make, as well as the corbels which go under the rail. 

I’m starting with the corbels, because those are easy.

Next up is the paneling, which is going to go along the wall above the backsplash as well as on the sides. I’m going to run the tongue and groove on each edge and then rip them apart at the end to get them down to their final width for what I need. 

This thing is pretty much ready for paint now. And while that is getting painted, I’m going to jump into the hutch cabinet for the pantry. 

I need to cut the groove for the bus bar for the under cabinet lighting onto all of the box material that I cut on Donavan’s CNC. Then I will make some face frame stock made up for this. 

Just for some context of how I have this set up, I have two indexing positions for each stile based off of this domino hole: the final install and the scribe position. So when I put this cabinet up, I can put the scribe position on the dominoes, and that’ll set the stile three quarters of an inch too far in. I can scribe three quarters of an inch, and then when I reset it onto the new position, the final position, it’ll be in place in its final spot. 

This is all set now, so I’m getting this in place and scribing those stiles. 

With those scribed in, I can finish building up the face frame and send it off to paint as well.

And while that’s off at paint, I can jump back to this and get it ready to go back into the shop to get fully built out into a cabinet. This part will be pretty mindless, because I did all of the figuring out part when I did the upper cabinets. 

So I’m heading back down to the shop. I have to cut the plywood, cut the bus bar grooves, cut the shelf pin holes, etc. 

Next up, I’m going to work on this charging station. Here is a model to get an idea of what I’m building. Nothing super crazy, should just be a little bit of milling and chopping of wood. 

Here is the main charging station box. I glued up a couple scraps of white oak plywood from the drawer bottom stock. The plug mold and some filler strips will cover that up, so it won’t be seen. For the lid, I’m going to put a rabbet on the filler piece and do the opposing rabbet on the lid so that it’s a nice seamless closure and so that the lid will be fully supported across its entire length. 

I’m also going to use some concealed hinges for this charging station box. To install those hinges, I bought this jig, which makes it quite a bit easier. These hinges require a two-step slot, so the jig has a slot and a guide bushing in the router with a straight bit, which creates the overall slot for the outside shape of the concealed hinge. The jig has these slidable pieces that create stops, which allow you to cut the deeper area where the actual hinge mechanism folds down into when the lid is closed. 

I made the pocket a little deep so that I can shim it up into place. But first I’m going to set the hutch on top so it all planes out nicely. 

To finish up the hutch, I just have the wiring stuff to take care of.

And here it is in place! Having finished up the hutch in the pantry already, this takes care of all of the cabinetry making! Having this hutch up here makes the kitchen feel a little more complete. 

Thank you as always for joining, I greatly appreciate it! If you have any questions or comments on the hutch cabinet, please feel free to leave me a comment. As always, I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. Until next time, happy woodworking!