Office Storage – Adding Cabinets to the Closet, Part 1

I have a pretty nice office in our house. Great space with a decent size closet. We had an old butcher block piece from Ikea that I originally used in our laundry room. I poured a concrete counter in there and used the butcher block to create a small narrow desk in the office closet. There is also a an old set of plastic shelves in the closet to store a bunch of junk.

I decided I need to clean this mess up, create storage for materials and electronics like printers and just generally organize and reduce the clutter.

The first part of this effort is to create cabinets for the space.

Creating the Cabinets

I’m fortunate enough to have space in my garage for a table saw and some other equipment . The cabinets for this effort are really simple. Just 3/4″ plywood held together with Kreg screws and glue.

The frames are 1″ x 2″ bits with 1″ x 4″ centers to divide the cabinets. The intention is to add doors…when I figure out how to build them.

This is the second of the two cabinets being built.
Another shot of one of the cabinets after it is completed.

Once the cabinets are built naturally we need to hang them.

Hanging the Cabinets

The picture below is after I hung the first cabinet and put everything back into place for the week. The ceilings in this house are much higher than a ‘normal’ house. It’s awesome. One other thing to note is that since the area that I’m hanging these cabinets encloses the cabinets on three sides it guarantees that I can secure them to the wall. Lots of screws…just in case.

The cabinet was…heavy but I got it up there with some help from my wife and the bit of plywood screwed to wall to give me a place to set the bottom of the cabinet as I lifted it.

Add a bunch of cabinet screws in the back and two sides and it is rock solid.

View of the closet with the first cabinet in place.

The second cabinet followed the model established for the first one. This one took more effort to hang because one of the walls has a bit of bend inward. The tolerances are pretty good.

Second cabinet being set in place.

Here is an image of the cabinets in place.

Cabinets in place

Now that the cabinets are in place it is time to build some shelves.

Building kitchen cabinets – Part 1

I am now on to building cabinets for the house. Cabinets for the kitchen, built-ins and the like. 

I thought I would document what I was doing

Part 1

The first thing to do is to have the necessary tools. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy but you want them to be in good shape, be able to cut straight, etc.

I have a nice table saw with plenty of power (Steel City), a chop saw, sander(s), a Kreg jig and screws. 

I also built a box that helps me do cross cuts on the table saw for material that is to large for the chop saw such as 24” wide plywood. 

You could certainly use a Skil saw if that’s all you have plus some nice straight lengths of wood and some clamps. Use the straight lengths of wood as guides for your cuts. Clamp them down to keep them in place. 

Here is my jig (and table saw with the out table and dust collector): 

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Once you have the tools and naturally a place to do the work you need a plan for building the cabinets. Below is a shot of the plan that I have for my 36” base cabinets. This allows me to review with cut list and know with certainty what I need and just simply do the cutting. 

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With your plan in in your hand, review the cut list and start cutting the pieces to match cut list. When making your cuts make sure to keep the kerf (the width of the blade). I forgot about it…once. Hence why you see the plans above.

You will end up with a pile of wood that looks something like what you see below. The 1×4’s are used for the base. The pile of plywood contains three pieces for each cabinet. 

This pile needs to 1×4 supports to be cut as well as the bit of 1/2” plywood that will make up the back of the cabinet.

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