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Most of my work area is enclosed in the old stove bay. Needing to replace the oven I decided to make the area more functional, replacing deep narrow cupboards with drawers and the plywood benchtop with Tasmanian oak.
It’s working beautifully now! I chose not to have a cooktop at this point but have a single plug in induction burner which I’m finding better than I expected.
Materials
excellent drawer side and runner sets
User friendly water based benchtop clear
Dulux lime white paint
and an assortment of glues and dowels and edge strips for the boards
Coreflute
Tools
Old battery drill
fine tooth handsaw
Screwdriver
iron
brushes
pointy dowel markers (can’t remember the name sorry)
borrowed long clamps.
file and smaller saw
Steps
Step 1
Made the drawer and oven units. There is nothing square in this kitchen! I chose not to use under cupboard legs as I’m using the space to store flat baking trays and such (eventually in box drawers) This is where I learned how important it is to cut square edges so I made a jig to line the handsaw up against which thankfully worked well because the next step needed it.
 
 
Step 2
Once the drawer units were in place it was the scary moment of working on the benches in an area with 3 walls, not one square to another. First I had to dowel join the panels. I needed 2 plus a strip of Tasmanian oak for each of the 3 pieces. I made a jig to keep the holes level and used the double ended dowel things to mark the adjoining holes. I used long clamps and bricks to hold them together while they dried.
 
 
 
 
Step 3
Using coreflute I made templates for the benchtops. I decided to leave the existing painted ply in place (filling in the cooktop top hole with a piece of scrap melamine and a bit of swearing) for strength and hopefully a bit of stability as the panels are only 19mm thick. It seems to have worked well.
Because of the tightness of the space I couldn’t dowel join the two cross seams so used the super strong gorilla glue and crossed my fingers. It’s been there since Easter with no problems. I used wooden pegs around the edge to hold together and allow a bit of expansion room.
 
 the underneath had 3 coats of Cabot’s benchtop clear and the top surface had 6 coats. Waiting 2 weeks before I could use it was agonising!
Step 4
I used 12mm x 90(?)mm thick pine strips to finish the edges.
The cupboard fronts are painted mdf.
One day I might play with them a bit more to give them a panelled look but there’s a lot more kitchen beyond this area to finish first.
The drawer beneath the oven was painted black to match the oven with a long bunnings drawer handle similar to the oven handle.
The ‘frame’ of this area was improved using 2 veranda brackets for the mantle - modified to fit which I’ve also used to hold the shelves inside the area.
 
 
Step 5
 
And happily in use!
 
 
That is adorable, @Christine61! I really like what you've achieved here. Do you have any before photos of the stove bay? That would be neat to see.
I love the mantle and the whole vibe. Kudos to you; it's fabulous.
Well done, and many thanks for sharing.
Mitchell
Thank you for your interest, Mitchell. I have one after the old electric oven was removed. Originally the fuel stove alcove was only the centre section with the doors each side to 4 ft deep cupboards which were fairly useless. (No photo of that sorry) Some years ago we removed the walls above the bench height leaving shallow cupboards from bench height up and deep below bench has been great for storage of heaters etc and kitchen
items not used regularly. It’s great for hiding cooking mess too. The ply benches were ‘temporary’ for a decade or so.
I’ve taken snaps of that but apart from repainting, as said, that was an earlier alteration.
For interest when the wall was removed it was full of old razor blades and metal bits. Apparently it was a common thing in the 30s to have a ‘sharps’ slot although usually in a bathroom
 
 
 
 
