Hi all
Couple years ago now, I promised the wife I was going to build a bay window bench seat. Like look built in, but not. I even made a post in The design forum asking for advice.
Well I put it off because I just didn't feel confident in my skills. Still don't feel confident in my skills as I've never really built cabinets and have no freaking clue what I'm doing, but it's time to get over my paralysis and get this done. Almost all my projects have been solid wood tables, benches, little boxes. Etc.
So I'm still semi paralyzed because this will be front and center in the living room, but decided I'm just going to start cutting.
Space is 106" wide, 20" deep and floor to top of bench will be approx 18" tall.
The middle window (flat wall) is approx 66" across. The two triangular walls are approx 20" each.
Plan is to make 3 or 4 cabinet boxes. Either two in the middle 33" each, or one wide one 66", then the two outer triangle boxes 20".
Would 3 or 4 boxes be better / easier in this scenario?
The plan for under the bench in the middle 66" section is to have 3 drawers. Then the two outer sections to have 1 door each.
I have electric outlets in each of the angled walls (reason for door on each end) . I also have a HVAC duct in the space, that I guess I'll have to cover.
I plan two extend the baseboard (2.25" tall) across the front of these cabinets / bench to give a finished look. Then add a 1" hardwood top for the sitting portion. Leaving me only approx 15" in height for the cabinet boxes / drawers / doors.
Another question I'm stuck on is should I build a separate base for the cab boxes to sit on or just make the floor (bottom panel) of my cabinets 2.25" up for the baseboard? The only reason I see given for separate base is for leveling purposes?
Besides the above two questions another thing I'm stuck on is how to get the reveal I think it's called the same across the whole face. Like if I make the three middle drawers the same size, then there is a large gap between the 3 drawers and the outer two cabinet doors. I can make the doors wider, but then that makes my doors wider than they are tall, which I just think will look stupid, right... Any advice on this?
I've been closely looking at all cabinets I've come across and all doors are taller than wide.
Finally drawer / door hardware. Is this universal, meaning will I be able to find slides to fit whatever depth I end up building or do I need to design around hardware. Plan was to build the boxes then figure that out.
Besides all that any advice for a first time cabinet / built in builder?
Sorry all the above babbling and poor writing. As you can probably tell writing is not my forte. Hopefully it all makes sense.
Thank you
Michael