Since my last post about the Mansard Victorian’s kitchen, I finished the second upper cabinet.

Then I started thinking about how to make a hood. I was enjoying bashing Cassidy Creations kits into something completely different from their intended purpose, so I sat down with my box of kits and went through them looking for something hood-like. I was down to the last few kits in the box when I spotted this.

I have a completed one of these already. Hey look — it’s exactly the right width!

I didn’t want to destroy my Bauder-Pine chest, but I didn’t mind bashing the kit. (Especially since I apparently only spent $1 for it!) Here’s what I came up with:

I kept the side pieces, and modified the original top and bottom pieces to create a new, wider front and back. The bottom is open, and the top is a thicker piece of basswood with a hole drilled into it for a light.

Here’s how it looks wedged between the two uppers.

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When I left off with the uppers, I’d built the main part of the cabinet and was ready to add a row of smaller cabinets above.

I assembled the “glass” doors so I could use them to determine how big to make the cabinets. I put these together with super glue, which more or less worked, but then I had to sand them a bit and some of those joints came apart and needed to be re-glued. Looks crunchy here, but nothing that can’t be touched up.

I added a piece to the left side of the cabinet because that side was a bit bowed, and I thought it would help. Also, the right side was thicker than the left side — the right side is made from a piece of the original Cassidy Creations cabinet and I didn’t have any scrap wood the same depth — so the double-wide left side will now be closer to that.

In the lower part of the cabinet, the shelves prevent the doors from swinging inward. The upper cabinets have no shelf, so I need to add something to the inside to force the doors to sit flat.

I found some thin 1/2″ strip wood in my stash.

The inside of the cabinet is 9/16″ deep (5/8″ minus the 1/16″ back), so the 1/2″ piece of wood is exactly the right size to make the 1/16″ thick door sit flush in the cabinet.

(Actually, that’s not completely true, as you might be able to tell in the picture. I was scrounging scraps out of the kits I was bashing, and used a slightly thicker piece of wood on the left than on the right, so the strip wood leaves a little less of a gap on the left side. When I build these for the other side of the stove, I’ll make sure the backs are the same depth.)

Oops, but there’s a problem! In spite of using the doors as spacers, I made the cabinets slightly too tall.

More strip wood to the rescue. These pieces are flush with the front, to fill in that gap.

Then I added another piece that goes all the way to the back, to keep the door from swinging inward. I added a piece to the bottom of each cabinet as well.

Now the doors are flush and the gap is filled in. I’ll have to repeat this on the other cabinet, so they match.

In the inspiration photo, I like how the glass cabinets have mullions.

I found some very thin trim in my stash. Before doing this, I didn’t double check to make sure I had enough for the second cabinet — dangerous! — but later I found another piece set it aside. Hopefully I won’t lose track of it before I need it.

Here’s how it’s looking (with some sanding to the front where that vertical crosspiece stuck out slightly).

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