The living room has a very large inset space next the fireplace that is holding a cabinet. The cabinet is not very functional. It is super deep, like 30″, but the shelves only go back about 26″, so stuff falls off the back. The doors open to 90 degrees, but the drawers always get caught on them. So, it was time to make it more functional, and better looking at the same time.
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The Plan and Materials
After some discussions we settled on an inset 6 drawer cabinet. That is why it is inset (squared). The cabinet is inset, but also the drawer style is inset. (insert pity laugh here). Drawer slides are outrageously expensive and hard to find right now, so I found some 26″ (non soft close) ones that would work. The cabinet is made from a sheet of 3/4 birch plywood, two sheets of 1/2 birch plywood for the drawer boxes and then some MDF and Poplar for the drawer fronts and face frame.
After sorting out the cut list, I got to work breaking down the plywood and hardwood into manageable chunks.
Cabinet Construction
The cabinet is comprised of 3 vertical pieces (Left, Right, Middle) and they are held together by stretches running between each vertical piece. The joinery is glue and pocket screws and is super fast to put together. I made a small mock-up to ensure it fit within the opening. After the carcass was screwed together, I could create the face frame. The poplar had to be milled and ripped to size first. Then it was cut to length and joined with dominoes. I had originally thought I was going to rabbet out the back of the face frame a bit to get a “thinner” looking trim piece. So, pocket screws would have not allowed that to happen. I glued up the face frame and then added some biscuit slots for alignment in the carcass and face frame. Then I finally glued, clamped, pocket screwed, the face frame onto the carcass.
Drawer Boxes
The drawer boxes were constructed using 1/2″ plywood (even the bottoms) and pinned rabbet joints. If you have read my previous projects, you know this is my favorite joint to use for side-mount drawer slides. You can get the drawer width dialed in perfectly and the dowels make it super strong. I used my handy calculator tool to help figure out the drawer box sizes and false front sizes.
First, I cut all the pieces to height and then cut the sides to final length. Then cut the rabbets and measured exactly how long the front and back had to be. Then cut grooves for the bottom, rabbeted the bottom panel and put it all together. Unfortunately while cutting the bottom to size I was attacked by the inch monster and cut it short. So, I had to get creative to fix that problem. I used a chamfered piece of oak to bridge the rear and bottom with glue/pin nails. Somewhere in this process, I cut some grooves that will accept MDF dividers in two of the drawers to help organized DVDS and BlueRays.
After the drawers came out of the clamps, I added hardwood edging to the top exposed edge. Not only for looks, but also durability. I had to extend the slot through the hardwood by hand
The last step was to drill and glue in some dowels to reinforce the rabbet joints. The dowels are about 1″ long and 1/4″ diameter. I think I did 2 per joint on the short drawers and 3 per joint on the tall ones.
Mounting The Drawers and Slides
After double checking some spacing dimensions, I pulled out a bunch of shim materials that was 3/4, 1/2, and 1/4 thick to help establish the drawer slides and boxes. I also had to attach a 3/4″ thick packer to the surface of the center divider so the drawer slides would clear the face frame. The drawers and slides were started at the bottom and worked my way up. Set the drawer slide on the set of spacers and attach to cabinet. Remove 3/4″ or 1/2″ spacer and set drawer box down on shorter stack of spacers. Attach the slide one hole at a time, alternating left/right. Then pull out the drawer and slide together to mount the very back one. In a picture further up in the post you can see a stack of spacers and a drawer slide sitting on the cabinet carcass.
False Fronts
Now it was time to measure for the false fronts. I wanted to hit about 3/32″ gap between everything. So, used my calculator to establish the overall dimensions for everything and began cutting the rails and stiles to size. The rails and stiles will get a 1/4″ groove for the MDF panel and be joined with dominoes. The MDF Panel is 1/2 thick and will get a rabbet allowing the rear surface of the panel and frame to be flush. This is important when mounting the false front to the box.
Sanding, Prep, Paint, Poly
After the false fronts were dry they got sanded on the drum sander, then by hand. The face frame received a nice ogee profile to match the trim profile in the house. After some more sanding, wetting, sanding, the pieces were ready for poly or paint. The drawer boxes received 2 coats of General Finishes poly. The face frames and false fronts received a coat of primer (INSLX Waterborne STIX) and 2 coats of BM Advanced White top coat. The poly and BM Advanced (thinned 15%) is a breeze to spray with my HVLP. The STIX says it cannot be thinned and is a bit too thick to spray quickly. I had to move super slow and it takes some sanding to get is smooth.
Finished Pictures
A couple things to point out. The cabinet was a tight fit and then need to rear bottom shimmed up a bit to make it flush with the drywall. Note how the face frame acts like the trim work for the cabinet. The seam was caulked after install to make it disappear. I used the holes for the drawer pulls to mount the false fronts to the boxes. I also used playing cards to establish the spacing. After using the playing cards, the top most gap is still a tiny bit larger than the others…darn.
The new layout and using drawers offers so much more storage than before. The dividers worked really well also. I should have added them to the middle drawers to help with organizing of smaller things.
