I soon realized it is much easier to fit my doors when the fridge doors have been removed and are laying flat.

In the above picture I had already fit the freezer door. I did not take photos of this but you will see the entire process on the upper doors.

I reattached the door to the fridge box.

You can see a center line in the above picture. I sized the freezer door with the desired side reveal of a 1/4.

Aligning the beadboard
My goal was to align the beadboard of the upper doors to the freezer door. When I built the upper doors I made them roughly half the size of the lower door. Each door contains a full piece of beadboard that I could reference to the center line of the freezer door.

Here are both untrimmed fridge doors resting on the installed freezer door. The centers and horizontals are perfectly aligned, but the edges are too wide on the uppers.

I marked the overhang.

Then I trimmed the edge.

I had earlier built a prototype door (basic frame cut to exact size).

Based on the new reference edge of the outside, I came back and trimmed the interior edges for the size of the prototype.

Installing backer panel
I cut 1/4” baltic birch to the specified size.

I then persuaded the panel into place.

Note: Unsafe stool standing.

Rabbeting the doors
The doors are rabbeted to create a 1/8” relief. This allows them to recess into the panel. I set up a single flat bottom blade and carefully nibbled the distances.

TEST BLOCK

Rabbeted doors. Rabbet on top, bottom and right edge.

Then I held the pieces on temporarily with clamps…

… to check the reveal…

Looking good.

Next time
I fancy up the backer board and start finishing. Plus making stainless steel trim go bye bye.

We found a fridge that would accept custom panels. It is 36” wide. and only 24” deep to the doors.

We had to cut back one stud in the wall to accommodate the depth and reinforce the floor for the weight, but the hole/nook is ready for the fridge.

Design
I drew up several designs in SU and settled on the one on the right.

The panels are beadboard with domino-ed bread board ends.

Preparing Stock
I have documented this process several times in my dishwasher and cabinet progress, but here goes.

All stock is reclaimed fir headed to the dumpster and acquired for free from local construction projects.
I comb it with a metal detector and cut to rough length. Time: 2 hours. Cost: Free

I re-sawed all stock in half on the bandsaw.

I left the stock to acclimate for a few days.

I did not take any shots of the stock milling process but it is well documented on my other blogs.

Joinery
Using the table saw ran grooves on both sides of the stock to accept splines. (no pic) This time I sized the grooves to accept 1/4” plywood. Much quicker than milling 1/4” stock.

After crosscutting, I ran the center v-groove on the rounter table using a 45 degree bit. I set up the table with two fences. If the board were to kick away from the first fence the groove would get off center.

The grooves left by the bit are fuzzy in fir, so I ran the edge v-grooves on the table saw. These are really just half of the groove, but look like a full v when two pieces are set edge to edge.

Here is a picture of the milled b-board with grooves.

The breadboard ends are attached with dominos. Here I set the layout for the first piece. I need to trim the edge of the panel, so I placed the domino off center.

I reinforced two of the lateral joints on each of the upper doors where the door pull would stress the joint.

Here is the large freezer panel during glue up.

Afterward I trimmed it to fit and exactly center the beadboard pattern (more on the math involved here next time).
It was freezing in the shop this morning (for So. Cal).

Final shot: Glue dries on a fridge door panel.

Next time
Fitting the panels on the fridge

Home Tour Madness
In two weeks (April 26) our house is going to be featured on the neighborhood home tour. Over 1000 people will be walking through…. gulp.

I have a to-do list longer than my arm.

I’ll give you more details on that later.

Item 50: Build Deck
Previously we had a crummy set of dilapidated stairs leading to our back door.

After some poorly planned landscaping we ended up with a dirt circle. Seen behind me in this picture. On the upside it was a good place to finish furniture.

We hired a contractor to build the foundation of the deck, but I wanted to have a hand in it, so I decided to lay all of the decking and install built-in benches.

Hidden Deck Fastener System Thingies
We decided to use Eb-Ty deck fasteners and avoid holes in the top of the deck. They are fairly easy to install.

1. Cut biscuit slot at joist intersection.

2. Drill screw into biscuit.

The real evil thing is fixing bowed decking. For that I used a Cepco BoWrench: Very cool tool that hooks onto a joist and lets you straighten out boards.

So the deck laying is easy, but time consuming; about two sixteen-footers per hour.

Benches
I drew up a plan for built-in deck benches based on a drawing from the Sunset Deck Book.

I tested a few locations.

I notched out the 4×4’s to sit around the beam….

…and bolted the heck out of them with 1/2” carriage bolts.

I did something new this project. I printed my Sketchup Drawing’s full-size, glued them onto plywood and made templates. Very cool use of Sketchup.

Template for Rails

What’s a project without a new tool? My new Ridgid OSS smooths the curves.

I spent many nights working on this project. Here I am last Sunday under the flood lights. The short rails were attached with deck screws covered by plugs. The long rails were attached with pocket screws.

I built a little jig to hold the top pieces at 6” cantilever.

Plywood spacers set the distance between boards.

More night Work.

!!
in the rain.

Almost done now… Just need to finish the plugs.

Deck ends have been cut square after this picture was taken

Next up
Refrigerator Panels.

Finally got around to staining and installing the window screens for the back porch/ soon to be breakfast room.

They are made of recycled douglas fir and finished with Early American Minwax Stain and Marine Varnish. I painted the hardware with a metalic paint.

The paint was peeling, many shingles were missing, or severely damaged. The rafter tails were rotted. It was time to paint.

We quickly removed the a.c. unit from the front of the house and the rat highway (Palm tree).

We found a painter through a neighbor (Good fortune since he painted the house whose colors we liked).

Did I mention the missing shingles?

These are actually redwood barn shakes that come in 36” lengths. For my house’s design they are cut into 18” lengths. After 90 years they are britlle like glass and they get broken during removal.

Above I use my mitre saw to cut the shingles to length. You can also just score them with a utility knife and then snap them.. But the power saw let me cut several at once. Big chunks of the driveway side were damage or coverd with plywood.

I love my nail gun.

Shingle work does require a little planning ahead so that you don’t have to face nail too many. I learned a slick method where you set the shingle low. Angle nail up under the top shingle and then knock the shingle upward with a wood block so that the nails remain hidden. Though the nail gun really solves all of this.

I also learned to chamfer the corners together to create a tight seam.

Meanwhile the painters were busy scraping… and sanding… and scraping…

Color

After the painters were done… We decided we did not like the columns painted white. So we went out by ourselves and started painting them again.

The finished paint job with more planting in the front. I also made some wood screens.

It is swell. 5 colors in all.

Finally our door has been stripped, stained, and varnished.

The wayy restoration glass was added to the middle where new glass had been set.

Sadly our workers added a “blackening” that has wiped the patina off of the handle. Grrrrrr.

Overall it looks 1000 x better.