DIY Wood Range Hood Cover – Some Adjustments For Safety + More Progress

Last Updated on October 3, 2017 by Kristi Linauer

So guess what I did yesterday! I pretty much took apart my wood range hood cover and remade it. 😀 I used the exact same process that I used the first time around to build the first version of the range hood covert (click here for those details if you missed that post), but on the first go ’round, it didn’t even dawn on me that the wood needed to be a certain distance from the stove top. Duh, right? I was just thinking that it needed to clear the top of my head, which is pretty easy to do since I’m only five feet tall. 😀

But actually, combustible material needs to be at least 30 inches from the stove top. Mine was about 25 inches on the sides…

So I removed the side MDF panels, the bottom arched piece on the front, and the two lower support pieces attached to the side cabinets, cut all of those down considerably, and replaced them. Believe me, that process sounds a whole heck of a lot easier than it actually was. But at least now it’s the right height for the sake of safety, and it looks a lot better and less imposing as well.

And you can see that I also added the corbels and shelf. Here’s how I made those…

I started by cutting a piece of primed 1-inch lumber to the size I wanted the top of the shelf to be. Mine was 30.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches deep.

Next I cut some pieces of 1 x 2 lumber, mitered on the ends, so that it would sit in one inch on the sides and front of the shelf. I assembled those pieces with wood glue and little finishing nails, and then attached it to the top shelf piece with wood glue and finishing nails.

Here’s a close up of the other side…

And then I cut a piece of 1/4-inch MDF to cover the bottom of the shelf. (The shelf is upside down at this point.)

So here’s how the basic shelf structure looked from the front (with lots of wood filler and before sanding).

And here’s how the back looked. I cut three additional short support pieces and slid them in between the top shelf piece and the bottom MDF piece. These three pieces sat towards the front of the shelf and sat about one inch from the back edge of the shelf.

On the range hood cover, I measured where I wanted the shelf placed, and then attached a piece of wood that I cut to about 25″ wide and ripped to 1″ deep (i.e., the size needed to fit inside the back of the shelf), and attached it with finishing nails, using my level to make sure it sat level.

Before installing the shelf, I made some little corbels. To make these, I recycled four of the corbels that used to be in my kitchen, and just cut them down on my table saw until they were small enough to be used for this shelf. Then I attached two of them together for each corbel to make them wide enough.

Before I installed the shelf, I used my sander to sand everything smooth (i.e., the areas where I had used wood filler to fill the cracks between the wood and MDF). I also did all of the wood filling and sanding on the actual range hood cover. (You can see the wood filler on the edges of the range hood cover two pictures up, and in the photo below it has been sanded.)

To install the shelf, I slid the back of the shelf over the support piece on the range hood cover, and then nailed the top shelf piece to the support piece by shooting nails down through the back edge of the top shelf piece and into the support piece to basically create a floating shelf. Then I attached the corbels by nailing them to the range hood cover.

And finally, I added three pieces of decorative moulding, mitered on the corners, right below the top shelf.

And here’s the shelf all trimmed out but looking a bit rough because of the unsanded wood filler.

The range hood cover still needs a bit more wood filler, lots of sanding, and caulking before it can be primed and painted. But it’s getting there!

And finally, I installed the crown moulding around the top. I was dreading this step. Just the mention of installing crown moulding fills me with dread. But in reality, it really wasn’t difficult at all with my Kreg Crown Pro.

I had to cut five pieces of crown, and on four of them, I got it right on the first try. I would have gotten the fifth one on the first try had I written down the right measurement. But I re-measured, and got it on the second try. Not too bad considering that when I did this crown moulding the first time, before I bought the Kreg Crown Pro, I had a pile of scrapped crown that I had cut wrong because I just couldn’t figure it out. 😀

So the last piece I need for this range hood cover is a panel to cover the opening. I decided to go with a matching cabinet door, and it’s already on order. I had considered making one, or making something to match my fireplace overmantel in the living room, but I think a matching cabinet door is the best option.

I’m soooo close to being able to paint these cabinets! Just a little more wood filling, sanding, and caulking left to do. I’m getting anxious to see my finished teal cabinets!

UPDATE!

The range hood is finished! Click here to see it…