Diy Kitchen

[JimShortz]

My friend has recently designed and built his own kitchen units in his house in Chiang Mai. I think he has done a great job at a great price, so I thought I might share it here. I think the photos are pretty self explanatory as to what he did. Here are the costs:

Granite top for the main unit, 2.4M long, 3,500B + 400B for the small piece on the drawer unit (prices include all cutting, edge rounding, etc.). He even has the cutout for the sink rounded by the guy on-site for 200B and turned it into a coffee table!

Metal frame made-to-measure that fits under the granite and supports it, 500B

Wooden uprights (cupboard sides) all from one sheet of 18mm plywood, about 800B

Doors made-to-measure at an amazing 1,500B for 6 doors (+1,000B for the glass); this includes fitting of the glass, drilling and fitting of the hinges and hanging of the doors - bargain!

Hinges at 50B each

Handles on doors at 67B each

Free standing drawer unit made-to-measure, complete (excluding top) for 1,300B (made from 18mm plywood supplied by the guy who made them)

Concrete base that the units stand on was made by builders as part of a bigger job, so impossible to price, but cheap and importantly not providing a void for insects to live in...

My friend did a great job of getting these things for such good prices by shopping around, and then building the thing himself. He could easily have paid 9,000 for the granite but got it for a fraction of that; likewise the doors were available for as much as 1,400B each, but he got all 6 for almost that price...

I'm sharing this because I think his design is beautifully simple and fantastically effective - feel free to steal his design; he says you are welcome, he just doesn't want to make anybody else's - he's had enough now! ;-0

Edited October 26, 2011 by JimShortz

[TheWalkingMan]

Looks like a nice price. I did not see a total for the project so I did the calculation...

Granite 2.4M 3,500

Small piece 400

Rounded piece 200

Metal Frame 500

Wooden Uprights 800

6 Custom Doors 1,500

Glass for doors 1,000

Hinges 50 x 12 600

Handles 67 x 9 603

Total 9,103 Baht

Looks like a very good price!

Numbers could be slightly off as I did not know the number of hinges so I thought that 2 per door was correct.

[tutsiwarrior]

very nice and nice to look at and at a good price as well...I would have extended the counter area to the right of the cooker to accommodate a food preparation area (chopping board, knives, etc) and put the fridge elsewhere but, whatever...

the faucet gooseneck has a fine mesh screen at the outlet that can clog easily with debris especially after new build construction...should be removed and cleaned after a couple of months of first use or whenever constricted faucet flow is apparent...

I attach a photo of my own kitchen that was not DIY, built by contractors and the counter surface is about crotch high but otherwise a variation on the same theme...

now is a good time for folks to share their kitchen work top and cabinet arrangement!

Edited October 26, 2011 by tutsiwarrior

[JimShortz]

very nice and nice to look at and at a good price as well...I would have extended the counter area to the right of the cooker to accommodate a food preparation area (chopping board, knives, etc) and put the fridge elsewhere but, whatever...

He is building another 2m unit on the facing wall. It's quite a narrow(ish) kitchen and that will become the main food preparation work surface - but i take your point. Once the other unit is made it will be very much a complete kitchen.

The reasons I chose to photograph and share his design are:

1. It is a clever piece of design and so extremely simple to make; no cabinet making, just a series of cupboard sides that are anchored into the concrete base, the wall and the metal top frame (and glued with builders adhesive to give a good "ant proof" seal). Skilled people make the metal frame and the cupboard doors leaving you with the fairly simple task of putting it together.

2. Other than "shop bought" kitchens, that are very expensive and made of laminated chip board (in other words expensive rubbish), this is the only home-made design that I have seen with full doors, rather than small doors and frames inserted in a tiled front (standard Thai method). I have lived in several houses with these small doors and it can be a real pain getting at stuff in the distant corners! This design cures that problem beautifully, and looks great in my opinion...

My apologies that the photos are poor quality (my phone...) and way too large. If you plan to look at the design closely I recommend you expand each photo to full size then right click on it and choose to save that large image; then view the saved images using your image viewing programme. I know to resize them for next time - sorry!

[tutsiwarrior]

yeah...there have been other threads on kitchens in the past and everybody has screamed about the ridiculous cost of pre-fab kitchen packages at places like Home Pro and etc which are basically chip board rubbish as you've indicated...

my kitchen was basically layed out and built by my wife when I was away at work and I would've preferred to have designed it myself but it incorporates a basic design (with counter top elevation too low, sized for asians) that has been serviceable...I'm still not finished with it!...there have been some changes with the window and the cooker location as you can see from the mismatched tiles...there's also a free standing cupboard/counter unit against an opposing wall...

[JimShortz]

I was kind of hoping other people might share their designs/ideas/comments. No takers?

[bankruatsteve]

I was kind of hoping other people might share their designs/ideas/comments. No takers?

I'll bite. I also designed my own kitchen. I bought units from Global without color and stained myself. I had the masonry guy build the counter wallsd with my dimensions and then installed granite counter tops, prefab doors for the under stuff (with shelves installed by me using plywood), and the prefab units on top. Also did my own fab for the oven enclosure. I had a HomePro guy come out to spec and, while I got some ideas from his design, it was WAY too much. I did my kitchen for (I could look up exact but) about 50K most of which was for the prefab units and the oven/range.

[T_Dog]

Great thread here! And Thank You to walkingman for the calculation. Hang some of those 4000 baht cabinets from Home Pro with the beveled glass and it would be even snappier. As it is, great job and fantastic use of cash.

[bankruatsteve]

A couple photos of my kitchen (if I got them to attach).

[T_Dog]

A couple photos of my kitchen (if I got them to attach).

BRSteve.... Nice kitchen! What size tiles are those?

[bankruatsteve]

A couple photos of my kitchen (if I got them to attach).

BRSteve.... Nice kitchen! What size tiles are those?

I like it. Not sure which tiles you referring - but almost all the tiles we used for the house flooring are the "standard" (?) I don't know about 1ft square I think. They sell larger sizes but not so easy to use unless there is very large space. Tiles for the wall, and what I used for the kitchen counter sides, are a different "standard" size: about 8" x 12".

[bankruatsteve]

Just noticed the 2nd photo I posted wasn't the one I intended to post Same kitchen but before we painted and some other stuff. Oh well.

[T_Dog]

Just noticed the 2nd photo I posted wasn't the one I intended to post Same kitchen but before we painted and some other stuff. Oh well.

I like the look, even unpainted! Those tiles look like 40 cm tiles, not the standard 1 footers though. Are you sure they are one footers?

[bankruatsteve]

Just noticed the 2nd photo I posted wasn't the one I intended to post Same kitchen but before we painted and some other stuff. Oh well.

I like the look, even unpainted! Those tiles look like 40 cm tiles, not the standard 1 footers though. Are you sure they are one footers?

I just measured. Your right. 40cm. (about 16"sq.) Actually, when I look around my house, maybe there is no "standard" size as I see a different size in my bathrooms (more like the 1ft.) and several different sizes for the bath walls. All I know is that the gf picked out the color she wanted and that's what we did. Does size really matter?

Cheers.

Edited November 1, 2011 by bankruatsteve

[T_Dog]

Just noticed the 2nd photo I posted wasn't the one I intended to post Same kitchen but before we painted and some other stuff. Oh well.

I like the look, even unpainted! Those tiles look like 40 cm tiles, not the standard 1 footers though. Are you sure they are one footers?

I just measured. Your right. 40cm. (about 16"sq.) Actually, when I look around my house, maybe there is no "standard" size as I see a different size in my bathrooms (more like the 1ft.) and several different sizes for the bath walls. All I know is that the gf picked out the color she wanted and that's what we did. Does size really matter?

Cheers.

I think it does! Thanks for taking the time to measure them. We are planning a kitchen at the moment and I think your photos helped us decide on the tile size for the kitchen. I like the look of it.

[T_Dog]

JimS.. After thinking about your photos for a while, I like the metal frame idea. Most kitchens are made from concrete which is a real pain if you want to re-model any time in the future. With the steel, the re-model becomes a much easier possibility.

Where is the fellow that did the metal frame, and does he do kitchen work like this regularly?

[bankruatsteve]

Just one other idea I reccomend for new-build here in LOS... whatever the plan you have for inside kitchen should also include the plan for OUTSIDE cooking (to keep the wife happy). For example, just outside the sliding glass doors for my kitchen is a 3-1/2x10M "outside" cooking area. It's covered and has a 1m wall arournd it, but other than drop down tarp (for when it rains and for the sun), it's "outside". And that's where most of the action is when there's guests or heavy duty cooking. We have a 2 burner range, Thai style bbq pots, and my gas grill out there along with lots of counter space. Posting an old photo that doesn't show the cooking stuff but the basic idea. Hope this helps you all for idea. Cheers.

[JimShortz]

Where is the fellow that did the metal frame, and does he do kitchen work like this regularly?

Hi T_Dog. The metal frame wasn't made by anyone who knows anything about kitchens, it was just made to my friends drawings at the local metal workshop (and they are everywhere!). He bought the sink first and then did the drawings taking care that there would be no metal where the sink bowl needs to sit.

I posted the prices here to help people avoid the "farang tax". You know roughly how much it should cost, so you can just get it made locally.

Edited November 3, 2011 by JimShortz