Thinking about replacing your kitchen cabinets? When I researched buying a set of prefabricated cabinets, I ran into a lot of challenges. The sizes I wanted were not available. I couldn’t find a style that I really liked. The wait time was going to be long. I might be better off having a professional cabinet maker come in and build custom cabinets.
I then found out that most installers in my area were offering units made from engineered materials. Since I wanted cabinets made from quality materials, I would be paying premium prices. I also realized that I would be waiting for quite some time before the task would be completed.
Research soon convinced me that a cabinet was really nothing more than a simple box with fixtures and doors. Armed with this new-found information, I made the brave decision to undertake the project on my own. I had a work space as well as most of the tools I would need. I quickly found where I could purchase the tools that I did not already have.
Knowing that the materials I wanted to use were quite expensive, I wanted to assure myself that my project could be completed with as little waste as possible and without any major mistakes. The good news from my research was that I should be able to accomplish my goals and save a substantial amount of money at the same time!
Before ordering any materials or tearing out my existing cabinets, I decided to use my computer to make a basic design. To help with this, I coded a program that would do the calculations and reduce my chances of making mistakes. It’s much better to find and fix mistakes before cutting any materials.
This Cabinet Planner application came out of that idea. I have continued to tweak it to where it is today. I even went a step further after testing the program and learned how to use Google SketchUp Make / SketchUp Free. This product enabled me to visually assemble the many cabinet components and verify that my application had done its calculations correctly.
I am giving my Cabinet Planner application to anyone who wants to use it – free! All I ask is that you use it for yourself only and that you do not profit from it unless you want to share some of those profits with me.
Screen Shots
