Thanks for your compliments Becky. The photos make it look better than it actually is. The hydraulic lifts came off of a roof rack for a Jeep Wrangler that lifted up. I had removed it from my Jeep about 4 years ago. You should be able to find similar hydraulic lifts at an auto parts place. Look for hatchback rear window lifts. The ones we have in are really strong ones but for a twin, you won't need as much lift pressure.

Well, the Magic Chef (Whirlpool) parts center doesn't have this part anymore. I went to a local appliance repair shop with the piece and they said they should be able to order it (they found a part number on it that they recognized) and will call me back this week. I will post the info on the replacement part on here and in the 2 other forums people were asking about it in (with the same model oven) if they are able to get it. My fingers are crossed.

All,
Thanks for the great comments.

Jim,
We didn't use any pegs to connect the wood. All of the face framing is put together using tongue and groove. We used a table mounted router with a 1/4" bit for the grooves and a table saw with a dado blade setup for the tongues (1/4" spacers between the blades). The face frames and just about all of the tongue and groove joints are glued with elmer's wood glue, paneling floats freely. To cut the sides of the tongues, we used a regular table saw blade.

The wood is a yellow pine boarding and yellow pine paneling from Home Depot. We are going for a simple cabin look inside and like light woods so pine was perfect. Below is a shot of the making of the face framing. You can see the tongues in the picture:



For the drawers, no tongue or groove, just 3 screws at each joint and the paneling for the base is set in a groove.

The inside framing for the couch and inside framing walls that hold the drawer slides were made by overlapping the boards and screwing them together since they don't need a clean look and this takes much less time and just as strong.

The top framing for the cabinet was tongue and groove with the grooves a little long but no glueing. I wanted to be able to adjust the sink area during installation and since every board is screwed to the framing of the cabinet, no need for the glue.

Any more questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks River. We had an issue with the stove (oven thermostat and knob unit). Needless to say, DON'T OPEN THOSE UP! bad bad bad bad. I will post details tomorrow when I add to the blog. Will be good for a laugh.

Mary, MDSilverado and Bob Cashman, thanks for the compliments.

Bob Cashman - I am not sure of the vent you are referring to. Are you talking about a vent in the back of the oven itself or a vent in your lower AS wall where the oven sits? Our AS has the heater unit right below the stove and I don't think there is an oven vent going outside (the heater unit has a vent though). It does have a vent from the top of the oven into the stovetop (picture #4 above in the shadows on the right side) and I assume that is to vent any smoke out of the top of the oven and is pulled into the overhead cabinet vent and outside. Air must be going into the oven from somewhere but I don't see a vent going in that is obvious and there are no connections to a vent tube or anything to the oven itself.

Thanks for the comment and as long as the screens aren't metal mesh, it should work great. When (if) you find your fuzzies, let us know where. We seem to have misplaced some of our brown bins and the plastic cover for the door handle for the screen door was in them. They could be in the same place here

Mary,
We actually didn't do anything with the cream stovetop except clean it good. We were shocked that there were no chips and it cleaned up so well. I had bought epoxy appliance paint to repaint it but there was no need.