"Matt Mason" wrote in message
...
Building a custom kitchen for myself.
My Dad, trying not to get bored in retirement has been
bugging me to give him some work. He has agreed to build
cabinet doors and drawer fronts out of maple or hickory.
I am looking for a source for cabinet & drawer base bodies. In
some cases, I am not even looking for the shelves.. just the body.
(snip)

If your Dad is set up to make the fronts, making the carcasses should be no
big deal. It's just a reinforced plywood (or MDF or whatever) box. A real
lumberyard can order sheets of the melamine or whatever finish. If your Dad
doesn't have the big table saw, or access to one, you could find a local
cabinetmaker to make the boxes, and perhaps even provide the raw stock for
the fronts. If he is building the fronts, you don't necessarily even have to
use box-based cabinets. Build the whole thing in place out of
melamine-finish plywood like a huge custom bookshelf. A screwed'n'glued 2x2
frame to outline it, and just skin the exposed surfaces with pretty wood,
and add whatever interior shelves you want, and whatever size and location
of drawers are appropriate. They used to sell pre-made plastic drawer kits,
with all the glides and stuff- just add a front. Then just add the pretty
hardwood stiles and rails, and the doors and drawer fronts. Site-built
kitchens were quite common until the postwar tract house era. Site-built
lets you make the cabinets whatever dimensions you want to exactly fit the
kitchen, and you don't lose 2+ inches for the double walls between each
cabinet.

BTW, more power to your Dad for wanting to keep his hands in sawdust. My
father is the same way, and just acted as GC/finish carpenter on a remodel
of the house he rents from me. The busier they are, the longer they last.
(fingers crossed)
aem sends...