I made it!

The rear row is almost done. The big pullout cabinet (also known as "Apothekerschrank") is in. All the knobs and handles are installed. I even managed to deal with a drain emergency. Our sewer pipe was clogged and required a rooter company to come out and clean. And I made it in time to SJC for my flight to Seattle.

Still missing is mostly window dressing: toe kicks, moulding, some caulking. Some areas of exposed drywall need to be textured. We'll hire that out as part of the lighting project. And there's definitely need for paint on the uncovered walls. But the cabinets are now usable. And I started with this project only one week ago!

I made myself a nifty drilling template for the holes in the doors from an old shelf. Any kind of plywood works for this really. Then put the template on the inside of the door, another on the outside to act as a block to prevent splintering when the drill exits the door and secured this contraption with bar clamps, while carefully aligning the edges of the template with the door. This ensures that the knob holes are in the same place and height for all doors. Worked great for the 10 doors I drilled holes in today. IKEA also sells a plastic drilling template called FIXA for less than $3. I'm likely going to use this for the many drawer and pullout fronts to be installed in the other half of the kitchen.

The 15" pullout cabinet requires the use of a template called "S1184/0404" to mount the cabinet front to the pullout drawers. Unfortunately, that templates was nowhere to be found in any of the boxes. I found a copy of it over at IKEA fans, and resized it in GIMP, so the dimensions in the template actually match reality when printed. I was quite nervous that this won't work, and I therefore would drill holes into a $120+ cabinet front in the wrong place, so I re-checked every hole location before drilling.

One the screw holes was right over one of the cutouts where the hinges normally go. However, I found that the plastic filler piece for those cutouts has a depression at just the right place to hold the screw securely in place. Once I mounted the hardware, I put the pullout drawers with the front attached on the support rails, and low-and-behold, it slid in just fine, clicked in place and was ready for action.

I also installed a 1/2 inch birch plywood board as temporary countertop near the fridge until we install the final countertop.

Oh, and yes, now that I got the hang of how putting together an IKEA kitchen works, I will do the other half of the kitchen in the coming weeks as well. But first we need to arrange a few things, and I need some rest.

Sorry, still no photos online. Maybe tomorrow.