Just as my idea to bash a changing table into kitchen base cabinets came from staring at the nursery furniture on the Mansard Victorian’s second floor, I got an idea for the uppers when I was staring at the bedroom.

As a reminder, here’s how the cabinets look so far.

I made these out of the bottom portion of Cassidy Creations kitchen cupboard kits, bashed together with parts of a changing table. Here’s what the kitchen cupboard looks like if you build it like you’re supposed to. (This picture is not my cabinet, but one that sold recently on eBay.)

And here’s my inspiration photo.

I like the tall cabinet on the left. Geoff and I are redoing our kitchen right now (mostly him!), and we’re going to have tall cabinets like that in our pantry area. Here’s an early render from the kitchen designer we’re working with.

The inspiration photo and my own kitchen remodel were both on my mind as I thought about how to tackle the Mansard Victorian’s uppers. I can use the upper portion of the Cassidy Creations kitchen cupboard over the larger base cabinets, but I need something else to go at the ends, over the portions made from the changing table parts.

And I just kept staring at this wardrobe…

Hmm…

Is this crazy? We’re about to find out!

This wardrobe is an assembled Cassidy Creations kit I got in a furniture lot on eBay. I have another of these made by Pam Junk and painted by Cheryl Hollis, and yet another that I built myself for the Queen Anne Rowhouse. So I had no qualms about pulling the unbuilt one out of my stash to pilfer it for parts.

Here are the pieces I had to work with.

I used one of the wardrobe’s 3/4″ wide side pieces to create the back of the cabinet, and created two new side pieces by cutting 3/4″ strip wood down to 5/8″ (the same depth as the upper part of the kitchen cupboard kit). I cut the wardrobe’s top piece (which has pre-drilled holes for the doors) in half to create a top and bottom.

Inside the cabinet, I used the two small shelves that came with the wardrobe kit, and half of the wide shelf. Since I had reduced the side pieces from 3/4″ to 5/8″, also had to cut 1/8″ off the back of each shelf.

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When I started reading Nutshell News magazines in the 1990s, some of my favorite articles were the ones that showed how to bash furniture kits into something other than what they were supposed to be. In my quest to furnish the Mansard Victorian (almost) exclusively with Cassidy Creations and Bauder-Pine furniture, I’ll do the same to make kitchen cabinets.

This is a Bauder-Pine kitchen cupboard that was recently listed on eBay. The same cupboard was available from Cassidy Creations in kit form, and I got my hands on two of them to use them on either side of the stove.

Here are the pieces in one cupboard kit — base cabinet on the left and upper cabinet on the right.

For some reason the top and bottom pieces of the base cabinet only had holes drilled to hinge one door. Both of my cupboard kits were like this.

I added my own holes to the other corners.

Next I stained the interior pieces, using a Red Oak Minwax stain pen.

Then I assembled the first base cabinet.

And the doors and drawers.

At this point I put the partially built cabinet aside for several months. Now that the kitchen floor is done, I’m ready to build the rest.

My plan had been to put the stove, cupboards, and the refrigerator all along the back wall.

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