Sketchup and Cabinet Design

The wood finish is fine, the construction is strong, but sometimes I'm disappointed in the final result. The cabinet face is too bland or something is out of proportion. I seldom draw to scale so I only have a feeling of what the end result will be. I've decided to make a plunge into Sketchup and have started of a series of postings about my kitchen cabinet project.

I'm making a series of cabinets for my kitchen to fill a 101" wide opening using a Mission Style theme. My plan is to use face frame construction to give a furniture look to the project. The center cabinet will be a sliding shelf with three waste/recycle containers. The design constraints for supporting this will define the dimensions of the drawer and doors of the surrounding cabinets.

Using Sketchup has required time to learn (several days), but with this one time investment in time I feel I have a quicker and cheaper means of evaluating design alternatives.