Cupboard Drawers

I've had a bit of spring fever lately, and as a result, I've been itching to organize a few areas in our house. We don't have a ton of kitchen storage so I've just been trying to maximize the space we do have.

As part of this, I decided to make a couple drawers for our island cabinets. As you can see the top shelf doesn't extend to the front, limiting the amount it could hold. The drawers add a little extra storage space and also make the contents a bit more accessible.

My cabinets are a standard size. They're 23 1/4" deep and the opening is 15" wide. You will of course need to adjust your measurements to fit your cabinet.

The top drawer is floating, and the bottom drawer brackets are mounted to the bottom of the cabinet. I'm going to give you the instructions for the top shelf. If all you need is the bottom shelf, here is a tutorial on how to make and install it from Ana White.

Materials needed for the top drawer:

• 1 - 1 x 6 or 1 x 4 board @ 6' (as you can see from the picture above I did one of each)
• 1/4" press board or plywood
• wood glue
• 1 1/4" nails
• wood filler
• sandpaper
• paint
• 23" bottom mount drawer slides (I couldn't find 23" so I bought 24" and cut it down with our metal cutters)
• European self-closing bottom-mount drawer sides (they come in a package of two)

Cut list:

2 - 1 x 6 @ 14" (front & back)

2 - 1 x 6 @ 21" (sides)

1 - 1/4" board @ 14" x 22 1/2" (bottom)

1) Glue and nail the front and sides like so:

2) Glue and nail the bottom. The bottom should be flush with front and side boards.

3) Finish with putty, sand, paint/stain.

4) Attach the drawer slides to bottom of drawer.

5) Place the back of the drawer slides inside the bottom-mount drawer sides like so.

 

6).Attach the front to the side of the cupboard like so.

7) Then you attach the bottom-mount drawer sides the back of the cupboard.

And there you have it, a little more storage space.