Dishwasher Corner with Salvaged Cupboard Part 2

In my last post on making a dishwasher housing unit cupboard out of salvaged wood I told you that the worktop I’d bought wasn’t sufficiently wide enough now that I’d had to add on more depth to the cupboard itself.

In the images you’ll see how this corner of the room is far from squared off. This means that in order to be able to get the dishwasher to sit in there the side of the cupboard needed extending.

I’d left the project overnight whilst I mulled over how I’d overcome the problem and having thought it through a narrow shelf seemed to be a good solution. You can see the images that inspired me to do that here.

I was using the salvaged steps from the staircase I’d removed from the room; which meant cutting them to size, and sanding them down. Then I added a couple of coats of termite treatment, just in case.

When sufficient time had passed I glued the piece that would be flat against the wall first. You’ll see I keep changing glue. I prefer the white glue as it seems to be more robust and dries quicker; however the transparent version feels oilier and seems to take long to dry. The latter needs to be used when there’s a possibility of it being seen though.

Here’s the first block…

Here’s it against the wall. The treatment actually gave it a pretty finish…

The end overhangs a little, but I’m not going to worry about that until I can work out how to approach the sink area.

Next is the end wood; I’ve used the transparent on the bottom and white glue on the side where it will come in contact with the white T&G.

Then for the front piece; transparent throughout, starting with the end that’s going to fit snuggly into the wood along the length of the wall….

…and then some glue on the back for where it’s going to connect with the other side piece…

…this is it in situ…

You can see that I didn’t tile right into the back corner – it’s not going to be seen and I brought those tiles with me on a trip from the UK. They’re Laura Ashley and there’s only a few of them.

The cut out strips in the wood are from where they fitted into the uprights. I wanted to match them to the window area, so I glued some 1cm 1/4 rounds to them.

Next I added a strip of wood along the back wall. This was glued in place and will help hold up the narrow shelf. I made sure it was level with the top of the front shelf with a spirit level. In theory anyway….

Then I cut another piece of salvaged wood to act as a shelf. You’ll see that even though the wood that runs parallel to the back wall is horizontal the gap narrows the further into the corner it goes due to the angle of the two walls. So I used a similar method cutting this as the top of the window encasement – I measured one end, then the other before drawing the line between the two at the appropriate angle.

Having cut the wood I kept having to plane/sand the sides to get it to fit snugly in the gap. Once in I ran some 1/4 round on the edge and well as putting some in the gaps that run along the wood…

The annoying thing is that whilst working on this I must have pushed too hard and made the shelf dip slightly. You don’t notice it on a casual glance, but the tins i plan to put there do dip slightly 🤪.

There were some gaps in the wood because, obviously, I’m not an expert at this – I used tinted wood filler to hide these…

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It doesn’t look very pretty at this moment, but here it is after I’ve sanded and varnished it..

Here’s the finished, as far as I can now anyway, version…

I’ve taken all those sharp edges off with the sander too. Ha! It’s a little dusty from all the woodwork!

I’ve added a curtain which can be pulled back and tucked behind the post when loading the dishwasher. I’ve also added that iron towel holder for tea towels; I think it compliments the iron sewing machine stand. More on that later 😊.