Time to Vent!

As promised, here is the tutorial on creating your own hood vent! This project is fairly simple, but definitely time consuming, it took me about 6 or 7 hours. The best part is that it is a really cheap project!

Tools you will need:
-saw
-mitre saw, or mitre box and hand saw
-Drill
-Screwdriver
-Hammer

Materials:
-MDF
-Wainscotting
-Molding/trim
-finishing nails
-quarter inch screws
-carpenters glue
-flat metal brackets
-L shaped brackets


To start, you will want to get a hood vent that is flush with your cabinets, or if you have a handy hubby like I do you can have him saw off the front of the hood so that it is flush (make sure he doesn't saw the electrical parts though!!!). This way you can still reach all your controls on the hood.



Step 1: You are going to want to create a simple 3 piece attachment for your cabinets. This unit is made entirely of MDF (I used half inch thick MDF), but since you need very little I recommend looking in the scrap section of your Home Depot because you can probably get it for $1 or $2 like I did. To make this you will need 2 identical triangular pieces cut, and one rectangular piece. The height of the triangular pieces should be the height of your cabinetry (length X) but be sure to take into account the addition of the bottom piece of MDF, and length Z will be the length you need to go out from your cabinets to cover your hood. The length (Y) of your rectangular piece will be the width of your cabinet. To attach these three pieces I recommend first applying glue, then using L brackets to attach them, as shown below. To prevent splitting the MDF, you should pre-drill the holes.





Step 2 is creating the actual cover for the hood, and since this is the visible part it needs to be done cleanly and neatly. I chose to use wainscotting since it is very light weight. Like the MDF, you only need a couple of feet in length, and a couple inches in height so you can definitely find a scrap piece for mere dollars. I attached the wainscotting to the base with glue and then several finishing nails along the top where I will later cover with trim.




Step 3 is attaching is back to your cabinets. You will need to remove your cabinet doors along with their hinges. I recommend 2 people for this job so that one person can hold it steady while the other person drills and screws. Once again, pre-drill holes where you will be using metal brackets to support it. Once you have it mounted you will replace your doors and hinges on to the front of the cover but attaching them to the triangular pieces.







Once you have the doors back up and everything attached you can add decorative molding and trim to embellish the front, like I did below. I also prefer not to have handles on those upper cabinets so I just used wood filler to fill the holes and touched up the paint. You will now be able to paint your hood to match your cabinets!



I think that pretty much covers it, but if anything is hard to understand or if you have any questions just let me know!