What is Reddit's opinion of Bob Lang's The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, Revised Edition: Shop Drawings and Professional Methods for Designing and Constructing Every Kind of Kitchen and Built-In Cabinet (Fox Chapel Publishing)?

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If you are going to paint, don't use oak. The open grain shows through the paint and will not look smooth. Birch, maple or poplar are better choices for painting. There is no single right way to build things, but it is a good idea to standardize your construction as much as practical. But don't try to make everything the same way if the end product needs something different. A combination of books, YouTube videos and looking cabinets others built is the way to go. I have heard good things about this book, but I have not read it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1565238036/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_3R1GN0AX3AA7DY62YTQH

I like this one a lot.

Bob Lang's The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, Revised Edition: Shop Drawings and Professional Methods for Designing and Constructing Every Kind of Kitchen and Built-In Cabinet (Fox Chapel Publishing) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1565238036/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_RVq.FbVZQBG75?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Honestly though, start with a book. This one is good, or just go to the library or whatever. Come back with questions after that. The level of knowledge that you need to pick up is way more than you’re gonna get from the comments.

That point was exactly what I disagreed with. Quality materials does not equal timeless, again this was about the typical person avoiding getting stuck with a design that ends up feeling dated. To which I said frameless cabinets give you the flexibility to avoid that. There are tons of high quality oak cabinets built in the 90's that no reasonable amount of dressing up, painting etc are going to make them not look dated because their construction and style are interconnected.

I'm not sure why you are tying materials to frameless, because you can build and there exists frameless cabinets that aren't made out of fiberboard, which is a different material than MDF. MDF is rarely used for box materials due to the weight and is typically used specifically for the flatness as a veneer substrate. There also exists a company that builds plywood boxes for Ikea's sektion system, so you can have quality boxes, use Ikea's Blum drawers, and build/buy whatever doors you want.

I've not heard of people "reskinning", typically you'd just replace the doors as needed on the boxes that are built with whatever material you prefer. The difference is that any regular person could do this without needing to modify the structure of the cabinets.

Have you read any books on cabinet building? I highly recommend Bob Lang's book which goes through all this: Bob Lang's The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, Revised Edition: Shop Drawings and Professional Methods for Designing and Constructing Every Kind of Kitchen and Built-In Cabinet https://www.amazon.com/dp/1565238036/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ytI0xbHC6SGAS

Well he is an artist/hobbiest. He doesn't do it for a living so probably isn't aware of a lot of shortcuts. He did end up doing a damn good job though. http://www.amazon.com/Drawings-Professional-Methods-Designing-Constructing/dp/1565238036/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1437861681&sr=8-2&keywords=cabinets+book

here is the book I was talking about. good read

Do yourself a favor and invest in this book. It is extremely well-written with loads of shop drawings and verbiage that might be puzzling at first. This is an all-encompassing book that I highly recommend.

I'm sorry that you took offense to my comments. It really wasn't my intention. I respect someone trying to build something themselves and thats how I learn. Maybe I didn't articulate it well enough but putting this huge project off for a year or even 6 months and taking that time to build some smaller projects using the same principles would be helpful to build skills and workflow and set you up for a better kitchen product.

For example. Making a tv stand or low hutch. You'd learn to build a square box and if you made it with doors would learn stiles and rails and installing hinges for the doors. If you added a drawer you'd learn how to install drawer slides and learn about spacing tolerances and building a box in a box if that makes sense.

Same idea with building a small wall cabinet.

What you'd gain by making a few smaller projects is a lower price to mistakes. Messing up a cut on a smaller cabinet will cost you less money than cutting a sheet of plywood incorrectly.

I have a personal mantra for my projects. If its worth doing once, then its worth doing twice. I came up with this because I did projects and learned new skills then when I looked at something I completed I see the flaws and would often want to redo it because I knew I could do it better now. Some times I did immediately, and some times it took me a while to start again but I was always happier with the second attempt. I'm talking finishing a basement type stuff, drywall, hanging doors, etc. Had I been able to build some of those skills before I took on the bigger project I think I wouldn't have necessarily had to start from scratch.

The first wood project I tried to make was a train table for my son. I went to home depot with my cut list since I didn't have a table saw and asked them to cut down the oak plywood for the bottom and the top covers that lift out. They cut them to size but the saw ripped to shreds my plywood and some of it wasn't usable at all, especially since I had asked them to cut it to my final size. I ended up asking a friend for help and we made something I was really proud of and still sits in my family room. We re-cut everything and had to re-design it to fit with the wood I had left but we made it work.

All I'm suggesting is to maybe try to build some of the skills before taking on something so big as a kitchen. I'm not saying that you can't be successful without doing that but you might have less headaches and mistakes to hide if you did. I really do want you to succeed and be happy with what you make. A great book that might help is Bob Langs "The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker".

Try this one...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1565238036/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_xSFRFb9TVF6HT