Leveling a built-in wardrobe

[sammy.se]

Hi All,

I'm planning on building a wardrobe in one of the bedrooms in my house, it will be built floor to ceiling, and a 'standard' two door width (i.e. not super wide or anything). It will have a couple of fixed shelves in there to add rigidity.

I'm thinking of doing the following:
18mm MRMDF for the sides and top
MRMDF face frames, and MRMDF shaker style doors.
The Doors wont do the full floor to ceiling length - there will be a small set of doors at the top.
Spray finished in white and clear lacquer (water based)
Sides will be joined to top and base using biscuits/dowels and pocket hole screws.


Couple of questions for your good selves:

The main question i have is:
The house is 120 year old Victorian terrace - so the walls and floor is not level. How can I build the cupboard so that I can adjust the base and sides etc, to make sure everything is square? I've searched the forum, and people have referred to having 'levelers' - but I don't know what these are or how to build them... Any advice on how to build the base of the wardrobe, and adjusting it to be level, is very welcome!

Other questions:
Any issues with pocket hole method I mentioned above?
I would like to have frames for the sides, rather than a plain MDF panel - any issue to this?
If I use a good quality MRMDF, can I just sand the edges and paint, or will I need edging?

Thanks all!

 

[MickCheese]

When I did a small wardrobe in our house recently I just built a plinth and within the plinth I glued and screwed blocks that supported the structure. I did that by levelling the plinth using wedges and when level just positioned the blocks so they touched the floor and glued and screwed them into position. I also left a small gap between the plinth and the floor so the carpet could be tucked under and gave a crisp carpet line but didn't trap the carpet should I need to change it in the future.

Does that make sense, much easier to do than describe.

Mick

 

[sammy.se]

Thanks Mick. Makes sense.

I did more searching and found this useful post built-in-wardrobes-tutorials-t67926.html

 

[RobinBHM]

The easy way is to make a sub base comprising of a a sheet of 18mm ply or osb which has kitchen levelling feet underneath. Make the base a bit small than the wardrobe.

Put the sub base in position, level up the feet until perfectly level. The wardrobe can then sit on this sub base and the wardrobe plinth / skirting can hide it. The sub base base wont need fixing on place. Once the wardrobes are in place fix with a few screws or brackets at high level. Always have doors on the wardrobe before fixing carcase to wall.

If you are building the wardrobe with face frames, then the bottom rail could be made quite deep, say about 80mm wide, which then gives a decent bit of land to face fix on skirting.



Much much easier than trying to level up a wardrobe when in place.

 

[sammy.se]

Thanks Robin - And does the cupboard have a 'real' base that sits on top of this sub base?
What abut the sides of the cupboard - do I attach them to the sub-base?

cheers

 

[Adam9453]

As others have said build a base with levelling feet to get your level 'floor' to rest your wardrobe carcass on top of.
Make the wardrobe carcass as a stand alone cabinet which is a snug fit on top of your levelled base and in the available area (horizontally and vertically). Fit carcass into aperture then fit face frame which is scribed to fit against walls, floor, ceiling etc that are not straight or level or both (as is usual!), pop your doors on and bobs your dad's brother

 

[sammy.se]

Thanks guys...

 

[RobinBHM]

Thanks Robin - And does the cupboard have a 'real' base that sits on top of this sub base?
What abut the sides of the cupboard - do I attach them to the sub-base?

cheers

The wardrobe carcase is made complete and sits on the sub base. There is no need to fix the wardrobe carcase to the base at all, just fix it back to the wall.