Category Archives: Cabinet

After a lot of thinking, rethinking and selecting kitchen suppliers, I finally managed to get a cabinet ordered tuned to my exact requirements! In this blog post I’ll share some of the details that make up “the perfect cabinet” for me.

How it looks on the outside

The first thing to consider, was that the new cabinet should fit neatly into our living room. So we wanted the style of the cabinet to match. That is where the idea of using kitchen cabinets first came to mind (also see “First Idea for the Cabinet“).

The next challenge was to find kitchen supplier that could build what we required. We started out with the supplier that supplied our kitchen. Unfortunately, they where unable to deliver the height we needed. As it turned out, almost all kitchen suppliers were unable to deliver what we needed. Especially the lower part of the cabinet turned out to be impossible for most suppliers to deliver.

Finally we found a kitchen supplier that built all of their cabinets themselves, and were able to deliver any (!!) size we wanted. As an input we had these requirements:

Kitchen cabinet to double as both paludarium and TV cabinet

And here is the final result:

The paludarium cabinet as it turned out; TV on the right on a lower section, and room for the paludarium on a higher section on the left.

We are very happy with the result; this cabinet should deliver enough room and strength to carry my beloved paludarium 2.0. Please note I did not use the original stands under the cabinets. As they are not in line with the vertical sides of the cabinets, the huge weight might destroy the cabinet. Instead, I used small wooden beams positioned directly under the vertical sides that support them from back to front (as you can see in the schematical drawing).


A look inside the cabinet

Inside the cabinet I now have the luxury of having tap water and a sewer drain, so I can completely automate the process of refilling, changing water. Also, the rain can now come directly from the tap water pressure, so I’ll just need an electric valve and no longer any rainwater pumps. The rain will be completely silent apart from the hissing of the sprinklers. I can live with the downside that it will be raining cold tap water:

Details of the drain and tap inside the new paludarium cabinet.

The total space under the paludarium should be more than enough to house all the stuff I need under there like a reverse osmosis appliance, all the plumbing and valves, the external filter and the a bunch of electronics. If I can store all this stuff there, I should not have a problem:

If I can store all this stuff under the paludarium, it should surely be enough to store all filters, valves, plumbing and electronics!

Up next… Finalize all details around the paludarium sizing and pass-throughs, then order the glass…!!!