Ed H
Established Member
Being fairly new to woodworking I've never built a project out of solid wood, its always used MDF or ply. With house refurbishments winding down for the year I’ve had some time to put my newly acquired tools (and my questionable competency) through their paces with a fairly simple project.
Our bedroom has a built in cupboard that was under utilised, strangely positioned on the wall (starts about 1/3 up and goes right to the ceiling) and was pretty ugly when we moved in. To sort out these issues I decided to build two large drawers on full extension runners and add a hanging rail to make the space more usable and rip out the nasty 80's door and architrave and hide the whole space behind an oak door made to look like a mirror, with hidden hinges.
This is how it looked when we moved in - apologies, this is the best pictured I had...the cupboard is mostly hidden behind the bedroom door, but you get the idea!!
I took the door out, ripped the old architrave off, attached new low profile architrave (3mm MDF) and re-plastered up to/flush with the new architrave, creating a surround that was flush with the rest of the wall.
I wanted to make the door from oak so picked up some 2000x100x25mm boards. To add some interest to an otherwise plain frame I used darker and lighter oak for the rails and styles respectively. The frame is approx. 1650mm x 780mm. Once cut to length the rails and styles were planned and thicknessed to 20mm. Although I chose the straightest boards I could they were still slightly twisted and bowed in the middle so I had to take that out on the planner - not the easiest first project for someone who's never used a planner before but they came out nicely.
I then used a morticer to cut the mortices and used the table saw and band saw to cut the tenons.
I then used a router with a 10mm straigh cutting bit and fence to make a 6mm deep grove on all the rails and styles to accept the mirror and backing sheet of 6mm MDF.
After a dry fit I attached 4 x concealed, softclose hinges to one of the rails and then fitted the rail to the door frame.
The whole door was then glued up and sanded down from 80 to 240 grit
Fitting the door was fairly straight forward as the hinges clip into the mounting blocks that I left fixed to the door frame, so it was just a case of positioning the mirror and clipping the hinges on.
I was pretty happy with the final fit - when closed its as tight to the wall as I could hope.
I was slightly worried that the joints would not be strong enough but after two weeks the frame hasn't moved at all so I'm pretty confident it will last.
Before the door was fitted I ripped out the old shelves from the inside of the cupboard and built a frame for the drawers to fit onto so the next job was to build the drawers. I used hardwood faced 12mm softwood ply from Champion Timber for the sides and base. I was concerned about the strength of 12m ply for drawers this size (600mm x 700mm) but once glued and screwed they are rock solid. There were fitted onto 700mm full extension drawer runners.
I now need to paint up a couple of drawer fronts made from MDF and fit them to the drawers as well as wax the oak to complete the project.
I'll post some final photos once complete.
I hope you've enjoyed the WIP. More to follow.
Cheers
Ed
Our bedroom has a built in cupboard that was under utilised, strangely positioned on the wall (starts about 1/3 up and goes right to the ceiling) and was pretty ugly when we moved in. To sort out these issues I decided to build two large drawers on full extension runners and add a hanging rail to make the space more usable and rip out the nasty 80's door and architrave and hide the whole space behind an oak door made to look like a mirror, with hidden hinges.
This is how it looked when we moved in - apologies, this is the best pictured I had...the cupboard is mostly hidden behind the bedroom door, but you get the idea!!
I took the door out, ripped the old architrave off, attached new low profile architrave (3mm MDF) and re-plastered up to/flush with the new architrave, creating a surround that was flush with the rest of the wall.
I wanted to make the door from oak so picked up some 2000x100x25mm boards. To add some interest to an otherwise plain frame I used darker and lighter oak for the rails and styles respectively. The frame is approx. 1650mm x 780mm. Once cut to length the rails and styles were planned and thicknessed to 20mm. Although I chose the straightest boards I could they were still slightly twisted and bowed in the middle so I had to take that out on the planner - not the easiest first project for someone who's never used a planner before but they came out nicely.
I then used a morticer to cut the mortices and used the table saw and band saw to cut the tenons.
I then used a router with a 10mm straigh cutting bit and fence to make a 6mm deep grove on all the rails and styles to accept the mirror and backing sheet of 6mm MDF.
After a dry fit I attached 4 x concealed, softclose hinges to one of the rails and then fitted the rail to the door frame.
The whole door was then glued up and sanded down from 80 to 240 grit
Fitting the door was fairly straight forward as the hinges clip into the mounting blocks that I left fixed to the door frame, so it was just a case of positioning the mirror and clipping the hinges on.
I was pretty happy with the final fit - when closed its as tight to the wall as I could hope.
I was slightly worried that the joints would not be strong enough but after two weeks the frame hasn't moved at all so I'm pretty confident it will last.
Before the door was fitted I ripped out the old shelves from the inside of the cupboard and built a frame for the drawers to fit onto so the next job was to build the drawers. I used hardwood faced 12mm softwood ply from Champion Timber for the sides and base. I was concerned about the strength of 12m ply for drawers this size (600mm x 700mm) but once glued and screwed they are rock solid. There were fitted onto 700mm full extension drawer runners.
I now need to paint up a couple of drawer fronts made from MDF and fit them to the drawers as well as wax the oak to complete the project.
I'll post some final photos once complete.
I hope you've enjoyed the WIP. More to follow.
Cheers
Ed
