under stairs chest of drawers

[Jerry Crawford]

Earlier this summer I need some help proportioning a set of drawers I was designing that were to be built in under a set of stairs. The look I wanted was a diminishing drawer height, bottom to top. Luckly someone here was able to help me work it out and so I thought I'd post this pic of the finished project. This surely isn't "fine woodworking" as it is intended for a teen bedroom area and except for the birch ply top and a couple of sticks of off the shelf molding from HD it's made entirely of 1 X pine scrap panneling tore out of the room during renovations elsewhere. The side wall was rough planking so I coverd it with homosote and glued on colorful patches of felt - turned it inot a poster wall where the occupant could pin stuff. Interestingly, after I installed it I calculated the space; there are over 12 cuft of useable drawer volume in this thing. Something any teen can take advantage of.

[Martin Shupe]

Very nice!

Good use of the space under the stairs!

[Todd Burch]

Good job Jerry! Are the drawers on slides or runners? Todd.

[Jerry Crawford]

Good job Jerry! Are the drawers on slides or runners? Todd.

the drawers run on the sides sliding on the dividers (I guess that's "slides", right?). I worked in a 1/8" tolerance around the sides and top of hte drawer and installed guide's on the center of each divider to keep the drawer straight in the slot which should keep it from binding up. Here's an interim install pic that shows and runners. I built the frame in the shop and slid it into the stair space using a few spacer blocks to shim out the uneven walls.

[Jim Becker]

Great job, Jerry! The incremental drawer height worked out very nicely. Built-ins can be challenging since you don't control the space around them as much as you would like. This worked our super!

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Jerry,

That is a great looking biult in. How was the frame assembled M&T, pocket holes, biscuits?

Thanks

[Ted Shrader]

Jerry -

Very well done! Certainly economical recycling all the lumber back into it. Proportions look great.

"Lots of drawers for a teenager to use." Don't know about you, but when mine were teenagers, their favorite "drawer" was the floor.

Ted

[Jerry Crawford]

Hi Jerry,

That is a great looking biult in. How was the frame assembled M&T, pocket holes, biscuits?

Thanks

After the design and dimensions were sketched out I set up a small assembly production line in my shop, milled out materials and put all the dividers (7 of them) together in one fixture using butt joints and biscuits then holding them in situ for about an hour whilst the glue set. I know that's not terribly strong but the joiints were going to be captured in mortices in the framing legs so I considerd the assembly pretty good. A free standing chest would have probably been made using more robust jointery. I laid out the position of the dado'd slots for the side supports to give me the drawer progression i wanted and ran one 10" wide board over the dado head using the cross cut sliding box on the table saw. Then I ripped out four 2 1/2 wide side leg supports. The dividers were glued into the dado slots and secured with sheetrock screws. The face of the dividers between the drawer fronts look as if they are morticed into the side panel like an ordinary chest of drawers would be except the side panel is just a 3/4 X 2 1/2 framing menber screwed to the wall.

[Jerry Crawford]

Great job, Jerry! The incremental drawer height worked out very nicely. Built-ins can be challenging since you don't control the space around them as much as you would like. This worked our super!

Thanks Jim, and your right about control issues. There was an outlet in the wall I had to work around for drawer depth and I had to tear out part of the right wall in order to wire in a light in the overhead. Otherwise the chest would be in total darkness when you tried to use it. I brought power from that base outlet up to the switch and light. It worked out OK for me but it was a whole day futzing around with it.

Now I'm redoing the small toilet/bath and calling it a teen-suite.

[Carl Eyman]

No teen worthy of the name would fail to be delighted with that set-up]

[Jerry Crawford]

No teen worthy of the name would fail to be delighted with that set-up]

Well,...I hope there is some influence on the parents for it. We are doing all this remodeling so we can market the place and move to Colorado. Now that I'm in the "built-in" mode LOML wants me to create a pantry in the laundry room so it has a "finished" appearance too. Of course once we get into a new place in Colorado there will be things to do to bring that place up to snuff. I may never get back to my hobby of gun building.