For the last 20+ years I’ve worked in all phases of design, fabrication, and installation of custom kitchens and other cabinetry. In the last few years my concentration has been on design work. In some cases I am hired to walk clients through the design process and produce a finished plan to be completed by others. In other cases I work with a custom shop and site contractors, overseeing the project through fabrication and installation. I started using Sketchup about 6 months ago, initially with the idea of helping clients quickly grasp conceptual and spatial ideas. I came to the conclusion a while ago that very few people can visualize a finished project from a two dimensional drawing, and Sketchup allows me to work quickly from the beginning in 3-D. I’ve also come to realize it’s potential as a tool for producing detailed shop drawings for production.

I’ve recently been working with a custom cabinet shop (www.plukas.com), producing conceptual drawings to help sell projects and refine ideas, followed by working drawings to go to the shop floor for fabrication. This particular project involves a substantial amount of work for a residential customer- extensive wall paneling, arched doorways, a new kitchen, and a large traditional pantry. I’ll deal with the pantry here. We were paid an up-front fee for design work.  The clients are semi-retired, have 9 kids and numerous grandkids, and their home is the focal gathering point of this extended family. They needed more storage space, and the kitchen space was maxed out. We decided to steal some space from a large two-car garage, creating a new room from scratch.

The first phase for me in a design like this is to take detailed site measurements. I create a floor plan in parallel perspective, viewed from above.

_{Although this is a new space, the home’s angled construction, along with existing elements like the closet, led to an unusual shape for the pantry room.}

I save this as a separate drawing and work off a copy, pulling up walls where needed. On this I quickly work up some 3-D variations of possible layouts:

_{The first version fills the space with open shelves and some drawers, along with a fair amount of counter space}

_{In the second version, I added a refrigerator and separated the two sections of cabinetry. A simple crown molding was also added.}

A lot of this work was previously done as hand sketches, whose main editing tool was an eraser. I do tend to do measured drawings at every phase of design, because it’s important to keep proportions consistent, and it becomes a habit. As we’ll see in part 2 of this post, this design becomes a lot more elaborate, with brackets, changes in cabinet depth, and more detail work than the original concept of providing more utilitarian storage.

These 3-D concept drawings really help clients get a sense of the new space. They also provide a means of conveying different options for details like door styles or brackets. Once the final decisions have been made, we move into more detailed drawings that will be used for production.

_{A quick conceptual drawing of a bracket and the final rendering}

Sketchup has streamlined my design process greatly. I’m able to show my clients quick 3-D concept drawings without having to create an elaborate plan first, and I can sketch out ideas with them in my office or on a laptop. This is especially important when I am trying to sell a project without an up-front fee. The faster I can get paid for my work the better, and Sketchup helps with this. I’ve found that programs designed for the kitchen industry are not flexible enough for the custom work that I do, and big CAD programs can be slow and balky to use. Sketchup is also an awesome tool for illustrating 3-D details with dimensions for the cabinetmakers who will build the product, which leads to a lot of labor savings.

Read Part 2 of this story.

Richard Edic is a designer based in Rochester N.Y. He is co-author of the Taunton Press book “Kitchens That Work”. His website is www.richardedicdesign.com