Part 4 – Closet Island Progress – How To Build Drawers The Easiest Way (Plus, The News You’ve Been Waiting For)

First, I needed to point out you that I made a little bit of a design change. I had initially deliberate on placing 4 drawers in every part. This was the plan for the aspect that faces the hanging garments aspect of the closet…

After which on the aspect that faces the jewellery/mirror aspect of the closet, I deliberate for this configuration, with 4 drawers on the left aspect and cupboards on the proper aspect.

So I made a decision to make the 2 sections on the hanging garments aspect of the closet deeper and solely have three drawers in every part. The packing containers themselves are 8.5 inches excessive, however there can be extra space as soon as the drawer entrance goes on. The drawer fronts on these can be about 9.25 inches excessive. Clearly, drawer packing containers don’t sit proper on high of one another in a dresser or cupboard. Right here’s what these drawer packing containers appear to be…

And right here’s what they appear to be within the part that can have drawers on either side. I made them as large as I might whereas leaving a fraction of an inch between them the place the backs meet.

However on the aspect that faces the jewellery/mirror aspect of the closet, I made a decision to maintain 4 drawers. The underside one is a deep drawer, and the opposite three are shallower. Clearly, they’re not put in but, and once more, drawer packing containers aren’t stacked on one another like that once they’re put in. There can be area between them as soon as they’re put in and the drawer fronts are on.

First, I extremely advocate utilizing staples as an alternative of nails to assemble a drawer field like this. My drawer packing containers are made out of 1/2-inch plywood, so I used these 1-inch slender crown staples. (Please forgive my messy wooden filler-covered fingers.)

For these, you want a slender crown stapler, which appears identical to a nail gun. I acquired this Porter Cable slender crown staple gun at House Depot. I typically use it for upholstery tasks, but it surely’s additionally nice for tasks like these straightforward drawer packing containers.

As I confirmed you yesterday, I lower these 5 items for every drawer field. The underside piece is lower to the completed size and width of the drawer field minus one inch in every course. So if I need my completed drawer field to be 35″ x 14″, the underside piece is lower to 34″ x 13″. The back and front items are lower to the identical width because the as the underside piece (34″) and the peak that I need this drawer field to be (this one is 4.5″). And the edges are lower to the completed dimension of the drawer field (14″) and the peak of the drawer field (4.5″).

I used my desk noticed to tear the plywood to the right widths, after which used my miter noticed to chop them to the precise lengths I wanted.

Assembling these is as straightforward as stapling the back and front items to the underside piece, after which stapling the ends on. It actually can’t get a lot simpler than that. You possibly can see right here that I used 9 staples to staple the back and front items to the underside piece (the drawer field is clearly turned the wrong way up right here). So the benefit of utilizing staples is that these 9 staples are just about the equal of 18 nails. I put them roughly 4.5 inches aside.

As soon as the back and front have been connected to the underside piece, I connected the ends, stapling that on all three sides.

Right here’s a have a look at it from the underside. I acquired a bit aggressive with the sander on this piece. 😀

However you may see that the aspect items lengthen 1/2″ previous the underside piece on either side to cowl the sides of the back and front items.

Staples typically go in cleaner than nails, they usually don’t generally tend to bend as they go in and are available out the aspect of the wooden like nails typically do. However they do generally take a chip out of the plywood, as you may see right here. However that’s nothing {that a} little bit of wooden filler gained’t repair.

And that’s it. It truly is the simplest kind of drawer field to construct, and because it’s put along with staples, it very sturdy. I don’t know that I’d advocate this very primary kind of drawer field for a kitchen or one other room that will get a ton of site visitors and use each day. For these, I’d most likely advocate one other technique of meeting. However for one thing like this dresser, I personally suppose they work completely.

And as soon as it’s assembled, I fill the staple holes on the edges with wooden filler, after which sand the entire thing, particularly ensuring that all the joints the place the items come collectively, in addition to the highest edges of the drawer field and the corners the place they meet, are all sanded clean.

You may also use iron-on edge banding to cowl the highest edges of the drawer field to present it a very nice, clear, completed look, which I’ll most likely do on these.

On a random observe, do y’all keep in mind this wallpaper I designed to go within the studio toilet? Clearly, I gained’t be utilizing it in there now for the reason that plan is to show that loo right into a walk-through pantry, so I’m contemplating utilizing it to both line my drawers or possibly use on the edges of the drawers only for a enjoyable little bit of colour when the drawers are open.

The colours aren’t excellent for this room. The wallpaper has plenty of purple in it and no darkish blue. However does it actually matter? It gained’t present within the room except I open a drawer, so actually, the colour is only for enjoyable and just for my enjoyment after I open a drawer.