Built-In Cabinet Wall

Yesterday I posted pictures of the new counter and sink in the laundry room.  Today I have an update about the opposite wall.  We want to cover the controls for the radiant heat but there is a lot of usable space at the bottom of the wall that I don't want to waste. We started by framing out the opening.  The wall is currently a little over 100" wide but my cabinets and doors are only 96".  This blocking will fill that dead space and give me something to anchor my face frame to.

Then it was time for the storage cabinets.  I had two 30" cabinets that were above the old laundry area.  I also ripped out a 36" cabinet from the kitchen to complete the space.  These cabinets are beautiful maple, but some idiot glued an oak veneer to the maple frames and replaced the maple doors with plywood.

I removed the oak veneer and sanded down the frames to get rid of the glue.  The maple is so beautiful that I hate to paint over it.  I have no problem painting pine and I can cover oak without too much guilt, but I love maple.  We slid the cabinets into their space then screwed them to the blocking and to each other.

We built a top for the cabinets out of sanded plywood and hung the tracks for the doors.  The hot water running through all these valves puts off enough heat to keep the laundry room a comfortable temperature.  To prevent the heat from being trapped in the cabinet we used louvered doors instead of solid doors.  Luke and I found these old closet doors at Restore and cut them down to fit our opening.

The bypass doors can be moved to access parts of the system or can be lifted out to expose the whole wall if necessary.  Once everything was cut and adjusted I removed  the doors for painting.  More on that later.