Adding Drawers to inside of armoire: your suggestions

[jason mowery]

Hello everyone!

My wife found a solid pine armoire she's smitten with on Craigslist, so I guess I'm going to pick it up today. Anyway, she'd like me to add some drawers to the inside of the armoire to put stuff like socks and underwear in. Considering I've got a few other projects going, and also that the drawers won't be externally viewable, I'd rather not get into elaborate drawer design or fancy materials, thinking I may make them from some type of sheet material and make the joints with a drawer lock-type router bit. The few times I've had question before, you folks had great insight and suggestions, so I'm curious what approaches you guys would take. Attached (hopefully) are pictures of the armoire from the ad.

[Jamie Buxton]

Yep... simple drawer boxes with applied fronts. Your biggest problem may be trying to color the drawer fronts to match the rest of the armoire.

One gotcha to look out for... Cabinet doors often intrude into the air space where you might be opening the drawers. If you build to drawers so that they completely fill opening side to side, they may collide with the opened doors.

[jason mowery]

Thanks for "gotcha" heads up, I can definitely see myself making that mistake. I'm getting confused on terminology, I think...what do you mean by "applied fronts?" Also, what material would you use? I'd like something sort of smooth, so socks and ladies' underthings don't get snagged or catch. I guess I could just thoroughly sand and finish, but if there's a sheet product that you (or anyone else) could suggest that's already smooth (like an MDF-type smoothness), that'd save a little aggravation. I'm knee-deep in home remodeling stuff as well, so I'm into simplicity for this project! ;)

[Ray Schafer]

While some may gasp at this suggestion, many drawers are made from melamine. You can get melamine with many different (faux) finishes. I just went to my kitchen to look at the drawers in my cabinets. I am in a 2-year-old house in a brand-new neighborhood with fairly expensive homes. All of my cabinets and cabinet drawers are made from "maple" melamine.

You could make the drawers from melamine and put a pine front on the drawers. That way, you will have a simple drawer that does not require a finish and a front that matches the style of the armoire.

[Jim Kountz]

Or instead of trying to match the color, go with a complementary but different tone. Maybe stain the drawers a darker color?? Just throwing thoughts around here.

[William OConnell]

Heres a picture of what I would kind of suggest
They're oak fronts ( not false) built into the drawer boxes. The cut out is a finger pull so you can open the drawers.
You can see two cabinet doors sitting next to each drawer pack so when they're on and closed you won't see the drawers at all. In other words you have to open the door to access the drawers, much like your going to do. The top drawers will have false fronts so they are set flush with the cabinet as opposed to the bottom 3 drawers which are set back 3/4"
Although the big drawers in the Armoires next to the drawer packs have dovetailed drawers, these smaller drawers are just rabbited, glue, and 5/8" brads. All using 1/2" prefinished maple ply which is something I do as standard, however you can use melamine as others have stated which is cheaper and will probably get done faster so you don't P off the bride

http://www.woodworkers.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1682&g2_serialNumber=2

[jason mowery]

Thanks for the all the good ideas, I really appreciate it! Hopefully I can produce something she can find some utility in.

[Tim Thomas]

If you really want to go for a fast solution you can pick up premade drawer sides and bottoms.

http://www.woodcraft.com/product.aspx?ProductID=146705&FamilyID=5438
http://www.woodcraft.com/product.aspx?ProductID=147552&FamilyID=5438

(There are other suppliers, I'm just posting the above links for reference.)

You just cut the parts down to the sizes you need and you can assemble the drawer with pocket screws. Then if you want to make the drawer look nicer you can put a nicer looking front on the drawer box. (Raised panel, veneered mdf, painted mdf, whatever.) Throw on some ball bearing drawer slides (or any type of slides you like) and you will be in business. The advantage here is time. As long as you don't get fancy on the drawer fronts you will have (1) no dimensioning of rough lumber (2) no cutting down of large sheet goods (3) no cutting grooves in the drawer sides (4) no sanding (5) no finishing. There are lots of options out there, but I think this is a pretty fast and functional way to go about it.

**edit**
Last thing: If you build the drawers this way they are fully functional without the decorative false fronts. So you can build the plain drawers quickly and go ahead and start using them, then take your time to design and build some nice looking fronts that will match the armoire when you have more time to do it.

[Stephen Ash]

I’m in the middle of the same project with our entertainment armoire. I found some plans for an insert set-of-drawers on the ShopNotes website, and they gave us almost everything we wanted. I’m using full-extension drawer slides so I was able to simplify the construction slightly by omitting the drawer guides and center stiles from the frames. For the cases, I used plywood faced with poplar, and for the drawers I used plywood for the boxes and poplar for the fronts. Our armoire is dark, and these drawers are stained to match, so I was able to get away with the poplar. Sorry, I don’t have any pictures to put up, but here’s the link to the page with the plans.

http://www.shopnotes.com/issues/102/extras/cabinetmakers-workbench-drawers/ (http://www.shopnotes.com/issues/102/extras/cabinetmakers-workbench-drawers/)

Regards,
Steve

[jason mowery]

Thanks again, the links/pictures/suggestions from all are going to be a big help!