I hate standard Revit cabinets
This article refers to our old casework collection. We have since redeveloped this collection to be more flexible.
Intro
I don’t know about you but some of the standard families that come with Revit are simply…terrible. They are not consistent in style, inconsistent standards inside the family, and lack flexibility in design language.
They do help people hit the ground running with modeling a project, so they do serve a purpose, but for design studios they are horribly insufficient past that phase, which means you already are committing to doing double work.
Time wasted
I found myself wasting too much time having to quickly jerry-rig a new cabinet for a project only to simply find the cabinet was not able to carry over to the next project, either because the model was drawn on with no parametric capabilities or it was set up as a band-aid and breaks if I try to change anything.
I eventually smacked myself and said enough is enough. My time, and my clients time, are too important for me to constantly start from scratch and doubling my work load. I locked my door, sat my butt down, and put in the time to make my life easier in the long run.
Main goals:
Make a lightweight family.
Most families found online are bloated with unnecessary parameters and bogs down project files. Project files need to stay fast and lean.
Parametric enough so I could get a range of styles out of one type of cabinets.
Door overlay types, handle adjustment, stile & rail, etc…
Have models presentable in 3D views.
So clients can see perspectives earlier in the project design phase.
All cabinets have a unified design language.
With these goals in mind, I dove off the deep end. Every time I made, what I thought was, enough, it turns out I was only kidding myself. I kept finding more and more cabinet types I could, and will, use. This also extended to parameters. This made it even more frustrating once I made a large set because once I realized I needed to revise a parameter or add something I would have to go through every model and revise the same parameter.
Lessons learned:
Do more research upfront into everything you need, then resolve that you still will not have thought of everything.
Just because a family has a parameter it does not mean you will use it. Employ the K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid) method before you spend time making it.
It always takes more time than you think, so budget accordingly.
Overall, the cabinets are exactly what I needed. Hopefully, this will help me eliminate my old bad habit for drafting exotic cabinets for one off projects.
