Fireplace Cabinets

A husband and wife asked me to build two “matching” cabinets for either side of the living room fireplace. I put matching in quotes because the two cabinets could not be identical for a couple of reasons.

The first and most significant reason is that the right side had to accommodate a barn door sliding behind the cabinet. This meant that the right cabinet needed to be about 4 inches less deep than the left side.

The right side cabinet was also slightly narrower from left to right than the other side. The difference here was about 3 inches. Despite these differences, when the two cabinets are in place, they look identical.

The clients also wanted the cabinets to be built using the same styling as the built-in cabinetry in the adjoining kitchen area. Consequently, the doors and drawers were built in the same style as those cabinets and the hardware used was also the same. The cove molding chosen for the top of each piece was also chosen to mimic the style of the molding at the top of the kitchen cabinets as well as the crown molding in the living room.

The paint used was the same as the kitchen cabinet paint. The tops of the lower portions of each cabinet were made from red oak and stained with the same stain as the floors. The overall effect was that these cabinets tied in perfectly with the rest of the built-in cabinetry in the living room and kitchen.

There were a few other custom details such as cutouts in the backs of the lower cabinets to allow for power cords, cutouts in the lower cabinet tops to allow power to be run to the shelf area, and a cutout inside the left cabinet to allow access to the gas key for the fireplace.

Overall, the pieces came out exactly like the clients wanted.