Bedroom wardrobe - WIP

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EdK

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Sooo... I wanted to make some storage and had no idea how to do it but I think it is working out.

I have been procrastinating on the kitchen build (don't know what I am doing!) but bought alot of the sheet material a while back.

I found a design in Taunton's 'Bookcases, Cabinets & Built-ins' p.99 - Christian Becksvoort:
bed-cupboard-05.jpg

bed-cupboard-04.jpg


I have Egger MFC (18mm and 8mm) along with cherry veneered 19mm MDF and some solid cherry wood.

I thought I could follow his plan but using MFC for the carcass and a slightly different construction process:
bed-cupboard-03.jpg


I made a base from softwood and a thin softwood frame for the wall - then starting from the wall I made MFC L-shaped boxes and kept adding to it. I had to scribe the back wall as it was well out of plumb and pretty wavy (and I left the skirting board in and scribed around it). This is probably not the way to do it! I found it slow...
I joined the MFC with 6mm dominos just to keep things in place and with pocket screws to keep things tight.
Messed up with the first screw and screwed through into the shelf above which popped out a large thunk of MFC... way to go. Have patched it rather than replace it. Should have replaced the shelf in retrospect.

Anyway that was the MFC carcass - the last vertical panel was 19mm MDF cherry veneered.

I dominoed reference slots into the carcass for the face frame and made the face frame.

I measured where the slots should go for the faceframe and then dominoed them into the FFrame. Again, I am sure that there is a better way of doing this but I was making it up as I went along and not working very cleverly...

I pocket holed the shelves and attached the FFrame with glued dominoes and pocket screws where I could. I only made a single walled MFC carcass so if I pocket holed the vertical sides then they would be visible which I chose not to do (i.e on a kitchen cabinet you can pocket screw the outside vertical carcass as you then have the next cabinet butting up to it.
This wasn't ideal either but I managed to brace the FFrame as I glued and screwed it so it's not too bad.

bed-cupboard-01.jpg


bed-cupboard-02.jpg


Then I made lots of doors from solid cherry (22mm thick by 50mm & 70mm) with 10mm MDF veneered panels.
The doors turned out ok - I dominoed the rails and stiles togther and used a slot cutter in the router table to cut the slot for the panel leaving a little room for expansion.

Chopped alot of mortices for hinges....

All finished with Osmo Polyx.

Oh, the end panel has a solid frame glued to it as in the original design but I made a mistake and should have made the frame a little thinner I think. In his plans the frame is 22mm glued on but in his pictures it looks slimmer - to my mind it should be slimmer to approximate a slotted panel - so something like 10mm to 15mm? Anyway - looks a little heavy to me.

So as you can see - plenty of construction mistakes!

At the moment I am a little stuck on the drawers.
How to make them?
As mentioned, I have 18mm MFC and 8mm MFC so was wondering what the best way of making the drawers was.... any advice?

I also have to buy drawer slides - any recommendations? Drawer depth is 585mm (from wall to font of FFrame) and 500mm wide.

Also - where can I buy traditional Shaker style turned knobs (ideally from cherry)? Don't have a lathe.

Thanks for looking.
Ed
 
Looks really good Ed. I like the doors very much. Sorry I can't advise you on your drawers - they are above my current skill level.

John
 
Drawers are simple enough really.
Essentially make an open topped box out of the mfc using glue and screws, this is your drawer box.
Then make the drawer front like you did the doors (cherry frame with veneered mdf panel) and screw it onto the drawer box.
I'd probably use ball bearing drawer runners which are widely available and go for ones with soft close built in.

I should say there are lots of ways to do drawers and the way I've suggested is not traditional fine furniture by any means. Just efficient, economic and functional.

Looks good though, especially considering it's your first attempt.
 
Thanks guys - so make a box using 18mm MFC for sides/front/back and bottom?
Just butt and screw through the sides/front back and cut an 18mm slot into the front and sides for the bottom?

I am not sure the best way to make an MFC drawer / the best joining manner / the thicknesses for each part. Help!
 
18mm for the sides is a bit thick but I'd use it if you've already got it. I would use something thinner for the base though as it doesn't need to be that thick.
Yeah I'd route a groove in all the sides of the drawer box to support the base panel of the drawer.
Yes you glue and screw the front, sides and back together (make sure you slot the base panel in before you fit the last side.
You could use dominos to aid alignment of the pieces for the drawer box but it's not strictly necessary.
When working out the orientation of joints, It's important to consider the direction of forces which act upon a drawer during it's use. Because the main force on a drawer is it being pulled out, you need to orientate your joints to resist the pulling force. This is the reason in traditional cabinetmaking dovetails are used on the sides of drawers as they provide incredible mechanical strength to the joint to stop it pulling apart.
You can achieve a strong joint on your drawer boxes be screwing through the sides into the front of the drawer box. By screwing from the sides, it's the torsional strength of the screw that's resisting the pulling force.
Hope that helps and just shout if you get stuck.
 
Nice project, very well executed.

If you decide to go with full extension bearing drawer runners be sure to make the drawer box exactly 1" narrower than the aperture the drawer will fit into.

Its not a big deal if it is slightly under size as you can shim the drawer runner but a drawer that is too wide is very difficult to install, if not impossible.

Good luck,
David
 
I can buy some more sheets of MFC - I have another two bedrooms to make storage for and then the kitchen (..the kitchen... filling me with dread!).

So is it something like 15mm MFC for the vertical drawer parts and 12mm for the base?

Also I know nothing about drawer runners - what is good to get?
How do you work out what length to get? (Drawer depth is 585mm (from wall to font of FFrame) and 500mm wide.)

I want to get a system going where I am familiar with all the processes so that I can use the same processes for all the bedroom storage and the kitchen.
 
OK - I think I have a bit of an understanding of runners now.

From reading around I can either get good ones like Blum / Grass or go for a no-name ball-bearing one.

I have a depth of 585mm so think that I should get 550mm runners - is this right?

The Blum Tandem undermount ones and the Grass DynaPro ones in that length are around £30 a pair.

I found some cheaper sidemount ones : http://www.screwfix.com/p/ball-bearing- ... 50mm/20420
These are around a tenner a pair.

So the question is (for my proposed five drawers), is it worth going for Blum/Grass at £150 or going for no-name at £50?
This is for bedroom storage - is the extra £100 worth it?

Thanks for any info.
Ed
 
Those screwfix jobbies are simple runners - they work fine, but are nowhere near the same quality as Blum or Grass, which are soft-close; you can get ball-race runners that are sold as 'soft close' but IME are more like a cash register drawer snapping shut - not nice.

Personally I like the Grass Dynapro - lots of adjustment options, and rear clips for the runners to attach to - but I know others swear by Blumotion; I'd take either over the side-mounted ones though.

HTH Pete
 
I use the Blumotion Movento runners. Very pricey but also very smooth running and loads of adjustment in all dimensions (or 3 of them at least!)

The dimensions you need to know are the internal cabinet width and the internal cabinet depth.

If the drawers are overlaying the carcass sides then the drawer depth needs to be minimum 3mm shorter. The find the closest size runner. Then size your drawer to the runner. (It sounds complicated but it isn't - Blum have all the info on their site)

The drawer width is calculated as Internal Cabinet width minus 42mm = internal drawer box width, assuming 16mm drawer sides.
 
Very nice project, how long was the construction time overall?

When you do the drawers, will you lose the middle two doors or keep them in place and have just a simple box drawer behind the doors?

Thanks
 
Hi Griggs - construction time... hard to tell! This has been my occupational therapy after surgery... Before that I was working very slowly in evenings and weekends - now even more glacially :)

No middle doors - I'll make drawers that will be visible like in the scan from the book.

Right - think I will bite the bullet and buy either Blum or Grass runners. Going to get a quote from my local supplier along with some 15mm MFC for the drawer box.
 
good good, sometimes its best to bit the bullet and have a go rather than building up so much apprehension that you never get started.
I'm sure you'll find it straightforward enough once you'd built the first drawer but do ask if you have any more questions.
 
They'l be fine - an excellent runner.

Make sure you order the relevant locking devices too.

You should take a look at the Blum Online Catalogue - it's some kind of weird digital book thingy. Go to page 450 (I think) and look at the bottom of the page. It shows how they fit etc
 
Hi. Grass Dynapro are heavier duty soft-close drawer runners, available in either 40kg or 70kg ratings. Dynamoov are lighter-duty (30kg) runners, and 'Tipmatic' is their push-to-open variant. I like Grass runners, haven't used Blum though many people swear by them - the Blum Tip-on (push-to-open) runners seem much neater than the Grass version that I've seen TBH.

Cheers, Pete
 
Right... made some baltic ply drawers and got some Blum tandem full extension slides.

I've fitted a couple of drawers but had the following questions:

#1 - how do you adjust depth?
I've got the standard orange fittings and can adjust the vertical drawer position but can't see how you adjust the depth. I'm only out by a mil or two on one drawer.
I thought about filing / drilling out the metal between two fixing holes on the runner so that you can position the slide by screwing into a horizontal slot (then add other screws for final fixing).

#2 - where do you buy the 'system screws' from?
I saw that you can use 4mm x 15mm normal screws or 6mm x 14.5mm deep thread pozi system screws (part no. 661.1450)
Can't find them locally and can't seem to find them online....

Glad I got the blum runners rather than a simpler type - drawers slide well and this project is getting to an end!
Thanks
 

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