Laundry Cabinet

One of the reasons that I got into wood working was to make cabinets or other furniture that's of a higher quality than you can purchase and at a reasonable price. Anyone who has shopped for kitchen cabinets knows what I'm talking about. 

Stacey wanted a laundry cabinet with room for baskets and a work surface for folding clothes. This beats having to take the laundry to the living room to fold so I was on board. 

Materials:

• 2 - 4'x8'x3/4" sheets of plywood (I like the Birch but pick your favorite)
• 1 - 4'x8'x1/4" sheet of plywood
• 14 - 2"x4"x8' boards
• 6 - drawer pulls
• 6 - pairs of drawer slides
• Wood Glue
• 42 - 1 1/4" pocket hole screws (coarse)
• 78 - 2" drywall screws
• 4 - 2 1/2" screws to extend the drawer pulls (you'll see why later)

Tools

• Drill
• Clamps (helpful not necessary)
• Countersink bit
• Miter Saw
• Router with 1/4" straight bit and 3/8" round over
• Table Saw
• Kreg Jig
• Bandsaw or Jigsaw (optional)
• 18 gauge Brad Nailer

I started the process for building this cabinet by putting together the frames to hold the baskets. I cut all my lumber to the correct lengths. 

For my baskets I just flipped them upside down and placed some pieces on the rim to measure how big they needed to be. 

I started by screwing the pieces together from the ends since the drawer front will cover the 2"x4" ends. If you lumber is dry it might crack on the ends when you put the screws in. This is where the countersink bit comes in. Just pre-drill and countersink your screws and you'll have no problem.

If you have clamps it makes it a bit easier to assemble the frames.

Here we are with all six frames made.

The next step was to measure and cut the panels to make the cabinet out of. I had a hell of a time cutting the bottom piece correctly, luckily I had some extra wood to use. When you calculate the length of the bottom, it needs to account for the drawer slides and the center panel to divide the cabinet, plus the length of two basket frames. When you add in your drawer slides it should be 1/2" plus 1/32" for each slide. When you do the math it should add up to 2 1/8" for 4 slides plus 3/4" for the center piece which is 2 7/8".

I also cut the sides and center panel here. The width is the same as the bottom for the two sides. The center piece should be 1/4" less to account for the sheet of plywood that will be the backer.  I also cut some pieces to brace the cabinet and for the top to screw into, you can see them in the next picture.

I used my Kreg Jig to make pocket holes in the base on both ends and the middle on the top and bottom as well as the top supports. If you don't already have a Kreg Jig it is well worth the investment if you plan on doing a few projects that might use one. I've used it on about 6 or 7 projects and even had my brother and my dad stop by to use it.

Here we have the cabinet all screwed together. I had Stacey help me to make it easier. If she wasn't around I would have used clamps to hold the pieces together. At this point, I put the basket frames in and measured again to make sure everything was going to fit. Lo and behold I was off about 1/16" on each side (womp womp).

I decided to take the end pieces of the drawer frames and plane them down a bit. Since I had them taken apart I put some nice handle curves in to make it easier to get the baskets in and out. This is where I used my bandsaw, you could use a jigsaw or not cut them out at all. Its totally up to you and your preference. It did make it a bit tougher to route a 3/8" round over on the sides.

Here you can see the round over on the frames. They came out really good. After I sanded them up a bit they were ready for prime time.

Here is a learning opportunity. I used a router to cut in a 1/4" rabbet on the back of the cabinet for the plywood. If I had to do it again, which I'm sure I will at some point, I would use my table saw with a dado stack.

Back on topic, I used glue in the rabbet with 5/8" brad nails and an air nailer to secure the back. Make sure that you cabient is square before nailing the back on.

Now its time to install the drawer slides. I've watched some videos on-line to see the best way to install them. I've also got a lot of experience opening drawers. I started by taking the frame for the basket and zip tying it in place on the basket. Then I put a spacer below the basket and put it in place in the cabinet to see where the slides needed to be. I marked a line and then measured it, it was very close to 6" so that's what I went with.

The two pieces of wood under the slide are 6" spacer blocks that I cut on my table saw. You want to position the drawer slide in the closed position all the way to the front of your cabinet. Then open your drawer slides and screw the slide to the cabinet. I didn't want the drawer slides to move when I put the screws in, so I used an awl to make a divot for my screw to be perfectly centered.

After you get the slides mounted to the cabinet you need to attach the frame. Fully extend your drawer slides and then you can align the frame to the slides. I used clamps here to get everything where I wanted it before screwing it into place. It is much easier to do with two people if you have someone to help you out, but it is manageable with one person.

After I got the slide and frame screwed into place I put the basket in to see if it would work, and it worked like a charm. As I stated above, I haven't installed any drawer slides before let alone soft close ones. These installed really easily and the soft close works great.

To figure out your spacing for the rest of the drawer slides you just need to do the same thing you did earlier. Take a spacer and put it on top of your basket and then put a basket and frame on top of that and draw a line. Mine came out to be about 9" so thats what I went with and I also cut wood spacers for that. The 9" spacers will now sit on your first drawer slides and you can set your drawer slide on it to mount it to the cabinet.

I had a problem where the spacers would not stay vertical and hold the slide. I used some double sided stick tape to hold it to the cabinet. Nothing too strong, I had some left over tape from the clear window plastic you put up on windows in the winter.

The next step after you get all of your drawer slides mounted is to cut your drawer fronts. I am using the same plywood that the cabinet is made out of. Stacey likes the layered look of the plywood when it's rounded over, and I just can't justify the cost of buying solid wood for the drawer fronts. Not yet at least.

You want to start out by cutting your drawer fronts a bit oversized and cutting them down to get the perfect fit. I took a 1/8" spacer and placed it under the bottom drawer fronts and used a 1/16" spacer between them. Once I had them in place I marked the outer edge with a pencil and cut that line on my table saw. I did the same for the top. I made sure that the drawer on top with a basket in it would clear the top of the drawer front, noted the height and made the cut.

You pretty much follow the same steps going all the way up. I also put a 1/8" spacer on the top to make sure the drawers would not rub on the top of the cabinet once it was in place. I think its starting to look like an actual cabinet at this point.

Now I unscrewed all of the drawer fronts and put a round over on the edges. Be sure to test the round over on a test piece of wood. If you get your cut too deep you can get what I call a shelf carved into your wood and have to sand it off, unless that's the look you're going for. You can see if in the figure to the left the front is what I like on my round over pieces but if your router depth is set to far you will get the one in the back.

I used the Minwax Provincial stain on the cabinet. Stacey and I both like the dark color. It brings out the grain in the Birch plywood really well.

I let the stain sit on the boards for about as long as it took me to stain the next board then wiped off the previous one. Stacey took a nice contrast photo here to show the difference. The longer you leave the stain on the darker the color would be.

Now that everything is stained, it's time to put the drawer fronts back on. I used a clamp to hold them in place and countersunk five screws into the boards from the back of the 2"x4"s.

Here is the cabinet with all the drawer fronts on. 

The next step was to put on the drawer pulls. I used the guide on the right to get the spacing correct. I measured the width of the drawer and then found the halfway point and put the guide in the center. I marked where the two holes should be and then pre-drilled them before putting the screws in from the back. The way the spacing came out for the drawers meant that the bottom four drawers went through the 2"x4"s while the top two drawers only went through the plywood.

At this point the cabinet is done, CHECK! Next up was the counter top. 

I cut eight 2"x4"s down to length and then ripped them in half. I happened to be lucky enough to have just the right number of clamps to let me glue up both halves of the top. I did this in two pieces so that I could run them through the planer after. After I planed both halves I glued them together. 

The top is 24" deep and 59 1/2" wide. Only being 24" deep it fit on my cross cut sled and I was able to cut off both ends. Then I used my circular saw to square one long side to the edges.  After that I was able to run it across my table saw with the fence on and I had a nice square top. I gave it a good sanding up to 220 on the top and 150 on the bottom.

Since the cabinet is going into the corner of the room I gave the front a double round over (top and bottom) and a round over on the top right side but not the bottom.

I used Danish Oil on the top, then it was put on the cabinet.

Here is the finished cabinet.