Building a cabinet for a wall oven

[American ex-pat artist]

We're about to buy a wall oven and none of the stock cabinets I can see are just what I want. IKEA has something close - a cabinet that takes a small refrigerator on the bottom, and the oven in an enclosure over that, but it then has another cabinet on top of the oven, where I want a surface that I can use for other things. Is there any reason I can't just build a box of sorts out of plywood and angle brackets? I'd guess that I should use some sort of bracing under the "shelf" where the oven will sit but are there any other things I shoulod know before I try to do this sort of thing? BTW I live in France, so recommending cabinets from this or that American supplier won't work! ;-) I'm sure they have everything I could possibly want but I can't get them to here.

Thanks,

Ellie

[Jim]

If you do it yourself, you can make it any way that suits your purpose. If it were me, I would make the sides and shelves out of thick plywood. I would cut dadoes in the sides to mate the shelves to the sides. I would install a thin plywood back. I would use face frame front. The face frame can be made of whatever wood you wish. I would glue the shelves in place. I would attach the back with glue and nails.

Such a cabinet needs no brackets. You will be surprised at how strong the cabinet will be.

Jim

[Tim W]

Buy from B&Q and cut and adapt is the simplest and easiest approach. an oven isn't all that heavy but fix wooden battens under the shelf for extra security.

Tim w

[Jay Pique]

To what tools do you have access? A table saw? JP

[horselover]

This sounds good - but I will probably do without the face frame front, since it's beyond my skills and available tools. My aesthetic standards have taken a sharp leap downwards since we moved to France, practicality being the only thing that is on offer anyway. Cutting dadoes isn't something I can do here, since I left all my woodworking tools back in the US and even if I bought new ones here I'd have no place to put them. So, now router to do such things. That's why I figured on angle brackets

- which won't be seen once the oven is in place anyway.

As for the back, should I leave the part right behind the oven open for air circulation? I've never had a wall oven so I don't know what sort of heat they throw off.

Thanks!

[horselover]

I don't know what B&B is/are but the only ready-made oven cabinet that will suit comes from IKEA and would be fine except for the fact that the cutting and adapting would have to be done in the IKEA parking lot to fit the thing in my teeny car. :-) Whereas if I buy plywood at the local hardware store they will cut to roughly the size I need, which will then just fit.

Yes, using wooden battens sounds like a good idea.

Thanks!

[horselover]

Don't I wish! No, I have a circular saw, a sander or two, and the usual assortment of hand tools. Oh yeah, and a hammer drill - indispensible to anyone living in France. (I so miss wood-studded plasterboard walls! Stone houses may seem romantic but not when you want to do a simple thing like hang a picture! And I'm an artist so this is a frequent event.)

Thanks.