A Project for Christmas 2019

So this story is quite close to the Project for Chritmas 2008 .. and I just wanted to share what I did recently, now that I have more woodworking tools with me, and more space to work with! This is the final result - the new pantry cupboards in our house by Christmas!

We started by getting a pantry cupboard designed by Hafele Sri Lanka - and they did this for free, as we decided to buy the components and the electrical and other units from them, as they had reasonable pricing.

However, as usual Shyaminie wanted the cupboard to be built by a "professional". After we finalized the design with Hafele and confirmed the order for the hinges, drawers, oven and the sink etc they pointed us to about three "leading" pantry cupboard manufacturers they would usually recommend to customers for the actual construction. This part didn't go well at all - since I had just finished dealing with building contractors and finally ended up managing my own construction workers in building the AdroitLogic 4-storey building, as that way I could get exactly what I wanted!

Here are the "full" quotations sent by the three:
First

Second

Third

Forget about the English and spelling! But there is no detailed pricing for a customer to determine what items costs what, and how they come up with the pricing. So that was the end of the "professionals" :)

A carpenter myself!

Yes, my great grandfather had been a carpenter. So naturally I have some of it in my blood! I purchased a new circular saw which was quite a basic one - but it was a Makita 5806B. I also purchased a Miter saw - another Makita. I already had a small router, cordless and corded drills and other small tools. The Miter saw was a bit expensive but the main item was the standard circular saw. I also bought 2" x 1" aluminum bars to allow me to cut straight pieces from 8' x 4' "eco" boards - which are also called WPC - a wood composite. The WPC boards were made in India and sold my W.M.J Fernando and Co in Katubedda. They were a joy to work with! They would cut really smoothly, easily and without dust! I cut just one piece of melamine coated boards for the drawer bottoms and the dust from that was terrible! So I was happy that most of the cutting was on the WPC boards.

Actually cutting the large boards was the most difficult part - since I didn't have a table saw. I thought of buying one - but still a basic table saw didn't help cut 8' x 4' boards which were much larger. So I am currently thinking of making a sliding table saw when I have some free time, in preparation for my next projects.

The cost

I ended up spending less than a third or a quarter of the quoted prices by the "professionals" and only got the table top done by QJ Quartz in Mount Lavinia - which is proudly a Sri Lankan compay manufacturing Quartz sheets from local raw materials. They did a superb job for the counter top and I can recommend them for any project as they have a great management and a team that really is customer friendly. They do not have a showroom - as they do mega projects mainly for apartments, but when you visit the office, they are small enough to be a great partner to you. My main costs were the WPC boards, spray paint, thinner and 2K coating, nails and gum, as I had already purchased everything else from Hafele along with the design. The team at Hafele Sri Lanka in Moratuwa was wonderful, especially Kamalanathan Devapriyan ("Deva") who helped me immensely, along with his technical and sales team, and the designer Lakmini Nuwarapaksha. Deva was always the one-stop-shop for anything Hafele, and was a great person without whom my project could not have been possible. At first I didn't tell him I was going to do the construction myself, but afterwards, he showed me how things were done, and I could go to the showroom in Moratuwa, study the existing units, and take photographs for reference later, all because of him :)

Actual Construction

The construction was awesome! 90% of the parts sold by Hafele in Sri Lanka were from Blum - the global leader in the space. They have a great planning software called Dynalog which would show you the detailed cutting and assembly instructions once you enter the dimensions of the design.

In addition, for all the technical components such Blum Aventos HF, HK, TandemBox, Bluemotion and all of the lift, hinge and drawer systems, Blum had very detailed instructions, documentation and videos on YouTube, so it was really a great experience. The best thing is that if you followed the instructions to the point, the result would always be perfect!

 This is a must-have tool, the Kreg concealed hinge jig - I got it from Amazon sometime back

One of these days during the construction, Minindi was asked by her school teacher to visit a වඩු මඩුව (a carpentry workshop), and I took her to mine. She ended up writing "මගේ තාත්තා වඩුවෙකි" ("my father is a carpenter") or something very similar which was nice :)

So the spray painting, plumbing of the sink and the installation of the Oven, Microwave and glass shelves were all done by me with advice and support from my wife Shyaminie, who wanted the design, the color white and decided almost everything else except the construction :)