Our Philippine House Project Kitchen Cabinets and Closets

Our Philippine house building project, kitchen cabinets.  We decided to follow the usual provincial Philippine method of building our kitchen cabinets.  This Philippine system for kitchen cabinets is radically different from that were familiar with in the U.S.  Generally, U.S. kitchens use a wood base, prefabricated cabinets which are of wood or particle board clad with a laminate or other protective finish and topped with various counter materials.  These cabinet systems are available in the bigger Philippine cities, but are expensive.  We wonder about their durability, especially that of base cabinets, in the hot, wet, bug/fungus-infested Philippine conditions.

Reinforced Concrete Kitchen Counter Bases

The Philippine system is a concrete skeleton; base, end panels and under counter.  In basic homes, the countertop may be tiled and the bare concrete painted.  The part of the concrete base inside the cabinets is usually tiled.  Were using the same concrete core, but with applied wood cabinets faces and end panels, factory-made doors and drawer fronts, granite countertops and, inside, some of the stainless steel kitchenware shelving systems available here slide-out baskets and so forth.  The wood framework may be of mahogany which is beautiful and cheap, about P25 per board foot.  We can go to the local sawmills and pick though the stock to find the best lumber.

The first cabinet bases we built were not built to correct dimensions and had to be demolished.  I should have kept a closer eye on the work.  We wanted a finished countertop 85cm high (33 1/2).  The first counter was too high.  The workers tried to used scrap Hardiflex cement board for the forms.  It bulged and deformed.  The gravel used was too coarse so the concrete was a bit crude.  We demolished it all and rebuilt using 1/2 marine plywood forms and the fine pea gravel left over from screening sand for finishing.  The new counter bases are so much better!

Sink Base wood forms not yet removed

Carol wants granite countertops.  I prefer marble but Carol is the boss of the kitchen and granite it will be. Well also have a small granite counter in our bathroom.  We have a concrete cabinet core there too.  Our bathroom sink will be an HCG porcelain under-counter model which we had to special order from Manila.  The concrete counter had to be constructed to accommodate and support the sink.  The workers did a good job of this.  Final sink setting and adjustment will be made when the granite countertop is installed. The sturdy Singapore-made Hwaco stainless steel kitchen sink is a pretty conventional model with the rim on top of the counter.

In the corner of this photo you can see a bit of the bathroom window.  In one of our apartments, there was NO bathroom window.  The supposed bathroom ventilation was by means of a small louver in the plastic bathroom door.  It was so hot and humid in the bathroom!  We put a large 100x90cm windows in both of our bathrooms.  As you can see, they are set high for privacy.  With good ventilation our bathrooms are so much more pleasant.

Cabinet base for under counter sink

The above photo also shows the tiled bathroom. In retrospect we made mistakes with the bathroom sink and cabinet.  Unlike in the kitchen, we did not install tiled concrete cabinet bases.  The problem is that when the bathroom floor is washed (or flooded) water can seep into the cabinet and anything stored on the floor will be soaked.  The reason for not building the bases was that we did not want to pour concrete for the bases over the newly tiled bathroom floor.  That was a mistake!  The second problem is that the sink was installed too far back in the counter.  It would have been easier to use if it was further forward.

Cabinets not yet painted

Skip ahead several weeks.  We were uncertain about what we should do about kitchen cabinets.  The prefabricated cabinets which were available in Iloilo City were mostly flimsy and overpriced.  We knew that others had obtained nicer cabinets in Cebu City.  In the end, for reasons of speed (we wanted to move in) and cost we decided to let our carpenter try his hand at the cabinets.  If we were unhappy with the result we could hire a cabinet maker to redo the work.  We bought planed lumber (mahogany and acacia) from a local sawmill and doors, hinges and other hardware from Citi Hardware.

Tiled cabinet bases

Cabinet bases, as is typical in the Philippines, are tiled with the same tile as the floor.  This makes the bases impervious to bugs, rodents and rot a real plus.  They are easy to keep clean. The plastic racks inside the cabinet are temporary.  They will be replaced by slide-out shelves.

Cabinet door hinges

Having suffered with lousy hinges on cabinets in our rentals, we bought the best ones we could find.  These Home Aid hinges were about P110.  They work well.  Cheaper hinges are about P30.

The cabinet carcass is of 2 x 2 mahogany.  The facing is 1 mahogany.  Wood is attached to the concrete cabinet sides, top, and bottom with nylon tox expansion anchors and screws.

Cabinet drawer

We used three-section ball bearing drawer slides, again because we had struggled with cheap drawer slides elsewhere.  Cheap hardware is one of the banes of Philippine houses.  These slides allow the drawers to be fully extended.  The drawers are made of acacia lumber, which reminds me of the butternut found in the US a pretty, fairly soft wood.

At the upper right of this photo you can see screw heads where the cabinet face is attached to the concrete cabinet frame.  Of course, these will be filled.

We bought very nice stainless steel handles for the drawers and cabinet doors.  These were P209 each at Citi Hardware.  We thought they were a much better deal than the handles offered at Ace Hardware.

Cabinet door handles

Another set of kitchen cabinets

This cabinet holds the appliances.  Eventually, there will be an 8 wide, glass fronted cabinet above this unit. Once all the cabinets are done they will be finished and spray painted with automotive enamel, probably white.

Hwaco Kitchen Sink

We bought and installed the best kitchen sink we could find.  We chose a Hwaco (made in Singapore) which cost more than P 8,000.  It was a pretty and the gauge of the stainless steel seemed sturdy.

Now, after three years, the stainless steel sink is pitted with rust.  Since we bought the sink and many other supplies from Iloilo building product supplier Moostbrand we told them of the rusting sink.  Their salesperson implied that the rust was our fault but promised to have a manager call us.  It never happened.  We have had better luck with Citi Hardware and Handyman.

Instead of building in closets, we decided on buying free-standing wardrobes. Why? Continued below.

Wardrobes instead of closets

Originally we were going to install built-in closets but we ended up buying free-standing wardrobes.  We delayed the construction of closets because they were not absolutely necessary to moving into the house. Once we had moved in we wanted to avoid the mess of further construction.  We looked at wardrobes, but most of them were so poorly constructed we could not bring ourselves to buy them, even though we lived out of boxes and suitcases for two years.  Finally we saw some big wardrobes at an Iloilo City store which sells surplus furniture imported from Korea.  They were constructed of entirely of pine and we found them to be attractive.  We bought all three for P35,000.  Two are shown above. It was a delight to move our clothes from the boxes to our new closets!

Our Philippine House Project Kitchen Cabinets and Closets
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