What? Me? Make a range hood...

It’s been busy around here. Between selling houses and raising kids I’ve managed to find some time to actually get some work done around the home: the office is almost completely done, almost all of the doors downstairs are painted and have new hardware and the guest room is coming along. But my favorite project so far has to be in the kitchen. I know, you are shocked.

The photo above is from the builder’s listing. The range hood is brand new and it bothered me to replace it with something else. If the controls for the light and fan weren’t on the outside of the hood, I could just build a hood around it. If only things were that easy. Well guess what? It was that easy!

It all started when I woke up one morning determined to figure out how to keep what I have while giving myself the hood I wanted. I took the doors off of the cabinet, grabbed a cup of coffee and started thinking of ways to work with what I had. Surely there was a way to do this. And then it hit me. I grabbed some paper, sketched it out and then headed to Lowe’s for supplies.

The existing under-cabinet vent.

Step one was creating the frame. This was actually fairly easy. I measured out the existing vent hood width and depth and decided how far I wanted the new hood to stick out. I attached a support piece to the existing cabinet using nails. Next, I created braces so I could attach the front frame. Note: Due to the angle of the vent hood, I had to cut the end of each brace at 22 degrees. After doing this, I attached the braces to a front support piece using pockets screws. Finally, I connected the front part of the frame to the support piece using pocket screws. Don’t laugh at my pocket screws - I didn’t have the right sized screws so I had to use what I had. :-) Plus, I’m really out of practice!

Step one: Create the support pieces.

The next step was what made the entire thing work - I added a piano hinge to the front support piece!

The piano hinge - the secret to making the whole design work.

After adding the hinge, I built the range hood. I simply followed the steps from the last hood I created. You can check that out here. The only difference is that instead of connecting the bottom trim to the hood, I connected it to the piano hinge.

The side and front trim pieces were connected at the corners (45 degree miter cuts and then nailed together) while the the front trim piece was connected to the piano hinge. I even made a little demo video (turn the volume down - the compressor went off the minute I started recording):

Note: I cut the side pieces a tad bit longer than needed so it created tension when I closed the piece. This keeps everything in place.

So what do you think? I love when an idea actually turns out to be doable with a cup of coffee and a little imagination! I still need to add the remaining trim and then the big decision - which type of treatment to do to the hood? Stay tuned!