From ancient times, designing kitchen cabinets was done manually using pencil and paper. This method provided a foundation for exploring kitchen cabinets ideas but modifying those designs proved cumbersome. Today, the digital revolution offers an effective solution: kitchen design software. Transitioning from traditional drawing to using design software allows more flexibility, accuracy, and convenience. This post will guide you through the process of designing kitchen cabinets, focusing on the merits of modern kitchen design software and the capabilities of woodworking planner and modeling software. 

Our kitchen designer software enables you to master how to design kitchen cabinets effortlessly. The overall sizes, the components and subassemblies, the use of doors and drawers, materials, and everything you need.  As with any good woodworking planner and modeling software, SketchList 3D provides the automatic generation of images, cut lists, shop drawings, and material layout diagrams.    It also is easy to learn and use without investing a considerable amount of time and effort. 

After all, you want to design and build, not learn computer programming.  This article covers a few main ideas and steps to take to get you started on your design-build journey. 

SketchList 3D is a free 3D modeling software that is useful for woodworkers.  This powerful and easy-to-use software allows you to design, build and straightforwardly modify your cabinet projects.  You can quickly explore and prototype your ideas.   The main idea behind it is to come up with a real-life, functional idea in 3D.  You simulate the workshop outcome as a 3D model. 

SketchList 3D can create one-piece or multiple-piece kitchen cabinet designs and easily add doors and drawers. It is an intuitive, visual and powerful tool. 

Why Should I Switch from Sketching My Kitchen Cabinet to Using a Kitchen Cabinet Design Software? 

Pros & Cons Using Kitchen Cabinet Design 

Pros 

• Easily Modify Designs: Alter elements without starting from scratch, making it simpler to try out different kitchen cabinet door designs and kitchen cabinet corner designs. 
• Real-time Visualization: Get a 3D view of your kitchen cabinet, simulating real-world outcomes. 
• Reports & Analysis: Obtain kitchen cabinet sketches, cut lists, shop drawings, material layout diagrams, and more to understand the fundamentals when designing new kitchen cabinets. 

Cons 

• Learning Curve: For those accustomed to kitchen cabinet drawing, familiarization with the software is necessary. 
• Dependence on Tech: Requires a computer or compatible device. 

• Initial Set-up Time: Setting up templates and preferences may take time initially. 

Pros & Cons of Using Manual Kitchen Cabinet Drawing & Sketches 

Pros 

• Tangibility: Unlike designing kitchen cabinets layout on software, physical sketches can be touched and felt. 
• No Tech Dependency: Doesn’t rely on electricity or software. 
• Simple & Direct: No need for extensive training. 

Cons 

• Time-Consuming: Redrawing is a tedious process for modifications. 
• No Real-time Visualization: 3D perspective is hard to achieve. 
• Errors & Mistakes: Manual measurements, unlike precise kitchen cabinet making software, can lead to costly errors. 

Get Started on Designing Your Kitchen Cabinet 

Plan Your Kitchen Cabinet Layout 

Dive into the fundamentals when designing new kitchen cabinets. This involves deciding the placement of each unit, such as shelves for displaying dishes or case drawers for storage. Decide how to break up the overall project into assemblies.  The number of assemblies you end up with depends on the cabinet’s function, its overall size, and the logical groupings of boards. 

Functionality of Your Cabinet Layout 

Consider the primary function – will the project store, display, or provide work surfaces? If so, does it make sense to group the parts in an obvious way?  For instance, kitchen cabinet corner design for displaying dishes might form one assembly, while a case of drawers forms another. 

The Size and Scope of Your Design Project 

Be mindful of the space in your shop, job site constraints, and standard measurements like base cabinet height. How big is too big? What fits in your shop and the way you cut and assemble?  What fits in the space on the job site – don’t forget the elevator or stairways.  Are there standards – like base cabinet height – to be adhered to for the design? 

As you advance in your kitchen cabinets custom design, you’ll notice that specific groupings of boards might be more aptly designed as one assembly.  You can then copy and modify this assembly to fit another space or purpose in the design.  For example, make a base unit one with and depth and add one shelf.  Copy that base unit and change the sizes to become an upper cabinet.  Insert more shelves or perhaps a divider. 

Setting A Budget for Your Kitchen Cabinet Design 

Investment in design software such as SketchList 3D pays off in the long run by saving time, reducing errors, and optimizing material use. 

Why You Should Consider Sketchlist 3D for Your Next Design Project 

SketchList 3D has rapidly gained popularity among woodworkers, particularly for those interested in how to design kitchen cabinets. It brings a myriad of advantages: 

Easy Adaptability  

Transition from traditional kitchen cabinet sketches to SketchList with minimal friction.  Its user-friendly interface requires no prior computer programming knowledge. 

Comprehensive Reports for Kitchen Cabinet Design 

From cut lists to shop drawings, SketchList 3D provides detailed and optimized layouts, ensuring no material wastage and accurate construction. There are several reports, but three are the most used in SketchList 3D.  These are as follows. 

1. Cut list – which shows the sizes and materials for every part. 

1. Shop drawing – which shows a 2D line drawing of the objects with dimension lines. 

1. Optimized layout diagram shows how to best position parts on the materials from which they are cut. 

Any changes to the kitchen cabinet designs are automatically reflected in the reports. If you are wondering how it works, don’t miss out our tutorial video here. 

There are several utility types of tools that speed your designs.  For example, clone and space make any number of copies and space them, a set amount or equal spaces, across a distance in your design.  You can shape boards as needed by the project. 

Affordability 

Try before you invest! Check out the Free Trial and discover the vast features of SketchList 3D. 

And don’t forget to check our prices here. 

Conclusion 

Designing kitchen cabinets has evolved significantly over the years. With the introduction of specialized software like SketchList 3D, the design process has become more streamlined, efficient, and effective. 

Key Takeaways 

• Switching to kitchen designer software like SketchList 3D offers benefits such as real-time visualization and easy modifications. 
• While manual sketches have their charm, design software saves time, reduces errors, and ensures precise measurements. 
• Starting your design journey is as simple as planning the layout, understanding functionality, knowing the project’s size, and setting a budget. 

For more insights and detailed walkthroughs, explore other posts like Woodworking CAD and Cabinet Design. 

The post Learn How to Design Kitchen Cabinets appeared first on SketchList3D.

Pencil and paper designs

Pencil and paper designs are really for one-time designs where time is not important. Changes are slow and difficult but pencil pushers don’t care. If you are doing a big job, or need to explore a lot of design ideas, you need SketchList kitchen design software. Learning is still required, but with much less time required than with outer software. This article and its videos explore another approach to cabinet design that will reduce the time it takes to create your design, drawings, and reports.

Up until now SketchList videos and training always began with a very detailed explanation of the nut and bolt details and moved on to concepts and techniques at a higher level. In it, we start with the outline of the cabinet and add sub-assemblies such as doors and drawers. What’s new is that we start with empty containers. The containers are sized and located, deleted, or cloned to explore alternatives, and at one point the assemblies are merged to see what that might bring to the design.

Following the process lets you learn and design what you need when you need it. No need to learn about cove moldings before you know to make a basic cabinet. And that provides the best return on your time. Not to mention it keeps you from getting painted into corners.

Containers in design do the following:

• Big purpose – organizing all the parts to be managed as one saving so much time.
• Using container edges or boundaries as guidelines. Provide reference points for placing and sizing of boards in design.
• Shows possible layouts in early design stages.

We then use the doors and drawer containers as landmarks or guides to show where the boards go and help set their sizes. Another difference in this approach to using cabinet design software is that it starts ‘building’ from the front back – with the face frame – and not left to right. You’ll see the natural flow of this approach in the videos. An additional benefit is this flow shows how the tools work without a lot of detail making for complexity.

Rinse and Repeat

And this iterative process lets you create an outline, add some detail, and if necessary take a step back and modify your initial outline without spending time on things that might need re-doing.  Realize that the design process is circular – not only adjustments to the appearance aspects of the design – but adding details such as contoured edges or joinery might change the structure and layout which in turn may change the designs.

This first video shows how to start a project, insert an assembly, size, and locate it.  Then we add doors and drawers.

Once you settle on the design you can finalize the details – joinery, contours, holes, and shapes – and clone those detailed boards as needed to fit the rest of the design.

So you start with the big picture at first. Make an assembly, clone it, resize clones and make adjustments. For example, add another drawer or delete the door. At this time work at the project level. Another tip – create two or three viewing areas on your SketchList 3D cabinet design software screen. Then set on to perspective [3D], one to front and one to top. This will give you a 3D, a floor plan, and an elevation.

This next video shows what you can do with the basic model to enhance it.  In it we work with doors and drawers.

To repeat – create an empty assembly. Insert empty doors and or drawers in assemblies – sized and located as needed.
Once you have a good starting point, start adding boards. In the video, I started with rails and stiles. This ensures your sideboards will have the right value of Front that fits behind the frame.  Try your next project with the cabinet design software using this new approach.

Construction with boards

Most cabinets have 2 sides, a top and bottom, and back and front [if there is a front] boards. Mostly these will be cut from sheet goods. Just make sure you pick the correct size material, width, height, and thickness so the part fits on the material.
Add board details. This can include joinery, contours, shapes, and holes. At any time think about cloning strategies for boards with details. E.G. detail a sideboard with dados, rabbets, whatever – then clone and mirror it to create its counterpart in the container. When completing detailed assemblies, doors, or drawers as you need  – save them to the library for future use.

Remember – you can also modify the saved objects and save them as additional works.

If you want more ideas, check out this set of images.

Give it a try with our cabinet design software. And modify the approach in ways that best fit the way you work, design, and think. Even after your first sessions – no matter the results – you started the process of moving away from pencil and paper. And even this earliest attempt at a design outshines the quality of a quick sketch on paper. For sure it is much easier to modify.

You need not be dong an entire room to use this approach.  Take a look at this simple bookcase and imagine how you can use containers do to this differently.

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These works of art/woodworking were done by a retired economist who worked in that discipline for 4 decades.

Located in Accra , Ghana,  Desi Lopez builds furniture on demand, using a variety of African hardwoods.

This photo shows the frame of a sofa he made.  His wife, acting as the company seamstress, is making a set of cushions for it.   It’ll be soft and comfy and oh so attractive.

The floor under the bed can easily be cleaned.  I think I might want to drop a few pounds before I slept on it.

A picnic table on the patio, right where it belongs.

And perhaps a somewhat more practical effort – a closet with maximum storage ability.

Finally one of his more artistic efforts.

He used SketchList 3D to create the design and the plans.  With reports from the software, he was able to make the projects in his shop.   People love his work. The photos show a wide range of capabilities both in artistic design and pragmatic woodworking skills.

Thank you for sharing the fruits of your wonderful woodworking hobby.

On a much more modest scale, perhaps to encourage you, here is a story about a project I dug up while on vacation.

If you want more about hobby woodworking – see this.

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A SketchList 3D user asked the best way to locate a drawer inside another drawer.  This unique organizing system is addressed in SketchList 3D by using container-type hardware to create and manage that inner drawer.   It allows easy adjustments like resizing or relocating both drawers at once.  Here are some examples of drawers in drawers.

What are the benefits of this drawer design approach?

The inner drawer is now an integral part of the outer drawer.  When you move, re-size, or clone the outer drawer the inner drawer comes along.   In addition, you can save the assembly with the nested drawers into your library for future use.

Drawer Design and SketchList 3D Container Types

The SketchList 3D container types (assembly, door, drawer, and hardware) manage objects in the project.  It is easy to switch between types of objects to accomplish the design.

The drawer-in-drawer idea helps organize storage in a design.  It is a good drawer organizer.  The upper level of the design is the project, in which assemblies manage other objects.  In our example, a drawer is inserted into an assembly.  Then the container called hardware is inserted into the drawer.  Even though we call it hardware, we use it to ‘build out’ another drawer.

From a SketchList 3D point of view, this is an application of the container type functionality.  You access the second drawer type by clicking on the drawer level at the top right side of the interface. This lets you work the inner drawer. it.)  Once created, this drawer needs to be positioned inside of a drawer-type container.

Click the add new icons at the upper left of the SketchList 3D main screen.

Next, click on Box with Shelf and select it. When the next window opens you can modify the parameters to specify the design of the cabinet.  For now, simply click Add.

How To Create the Outer Drawer

Select the change template test near the top left of the Cabinet Wizard form and click it.  This time click on the Drawer model.  In the Cabinet Wizard change the Drawer size as needed.  Remember it must fit in the assembly.

This time click the Merge button at the bottom of the screen to add the drawer into the assembly.  Locate the drawer as needed.

How To Create the Inner Drawer or drawer organizer

Go into the Drawer level.  Click the hardware icon near the top left of the SketchList 3D main screen.  An empty container will appear at the bottom, left, front of the drawer.  Resize it to the sizes of the inner drawer.  Rename the hardware as “inner drawer”.

Go into the hardware level and build out the inner drawer by inserting the necessary boards.  This post shows how to build out that drawer.

Conclusion

This tutorial introduces SketchList to users who are new to 3D design or want to expand their skill set.  It demonstrates the use and value of the various containers in SketchList 3D.  hardware may be the most versatile container since it can be inserted directly into the assembly or into drawers or doors.  In the latter cases, it provides a sub-subassembly.

The post Drawer Design-Build Drawers Inside of Drawers appeared first on SketchList3D.

If you are a woodworker looking to improve your designs and still use pencil and paper to create them, you really want to begin using furniture design software for your designs.  You will design better and do it more quickly.  The ability to see your ideas in three dimensions will change your woodworking experience.

And of course, in order to use woodwork design software you need to learn to use it first.  And that is not easy.  I was in this position with my woodworking.  But while I tried three software products [AutoCad, TurboCad, and SketchUp], I did not achieve any real success.

So I developed SketchList 3D furniture design software thirteen years ago.  My concept was to make it possible for woodworkers, who are novice computer users, to create projects by creating, sizing, and positioning boards.  Beyond that, furniture-making processes like joinery, shaping, and edging were all included as simple combinations of mouse clicks.  Wait for it – one more – the shop drawings, cut lists, and sheet good layouts were automatically linked to the design.

That took some doing but worked out well.

The real challenge was to work with woodworkers to help them adapt the software to their designs.

While we work diligently to make the software easier to understand and use, and provide tons of documentation and videos, something was missing.

Our users called, texted, and emailed us with questions.  Some paid for one on one training and consulting.  And that was OK.

At the beginning of 2020, I started doing free weekly meetings with SketchList 3D users and people interested in learning about design software.  So pretty much every week since, we have been meeting via Zoom to learn about SketchList 3D, review users’ designs, have people share ideas, tips, and advice.

I am thankful for the ability to do these meetings.  Not only does it give me an excellent channel to user ideas and experiences, but through it, I saw the value of community and relationships with my users.

Earlier this week, we had a meeting that covered the basics of SketchList 3D woodwork design software interactively.   Several people asked questions and made observations.   It seems that everyone was pleased.

There is a YouTube video of the first section of the class.  It covers using furniture design software for creating your project and structuring the various assemblies and subassemblies.  The video runs for 16 minutes.  Over the next week or so, I will post the other four sections.

To read what users are saying click this.

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