Finishing the drawers

OK, it's taken a while but you know, I'm a busy guy...

To finally finish the drawers, all that needed to be done was putting on a nice front and knob. The fronts I made from plywood panels, 4 mm thick. The knobs I bought at the hardware store.

I measured the size quite precise. Then the panels were cut and glued on to the drawers. Use a glue that dries fast so that you don't have to keep it pressed for hours. You wouldn't enjoy that, trust me.

In the picture you can see that I stuck a little piece of paper in between two panels. Like wise I also had one stuck under the bottom drawers at some point. This is to make sure the panel doesn't move down. You know, gravity and such.

After they dried I drilled a hole in the front where the knob would come. Screw the knob on and it's done.

Finally this project gets the status "closed".

Expedit hack 2: Drawers phase 2

This post is about making the actual drawers that go into the Ikea Expedit cupboard. In the previous post about this I showed how to make the casing that the drawers go in to.

First, get your wood together. Basically there are 3 sizes of wood required. For 4 drawers we need:
- 4x bottom panel the full size of the drawer.
- 8x front/back panels the full width of the drawer
- 8x side panels having the full drawer length - (minus) 2x the thickness of the front/back panel

The width of the front-, back- and side panels (actually the whole height of the complete drawer) doesn't matter much as long as it's about 2cm under the max. height of the drawer. If you make them any higher, you can't put them in.

Also make the bottom panel's width not too tight in between the rails. If in doubt, it can easily be 1mm less.

Before starting, take some measures. This way you know where screws for mounting the drawer on the rails will be so you don't put any nails in that spot before mounting it.

Measure the distance from the hole closest to the front and from that hole to the next hole(s).

I made a little sketch. The drawerbottom is on the left. The casing on the right. The dots are the places where the drawer will be attached to the rails.

Mark these spots on the drawer bottom panel. In my case 37mm from the front...

... and another 251mm from there towards the back.

Get some small nails. I used whatever I could find. These nails have round heads, that's not very easy to use but I really needed to use them.

Hammer them in at half the thickness of the front-, back- and side panels from the edge. Not all the way through!

Be sure not to hammer any nails near the spot where the panel will be mounted on the rails.



Fix the sides on the bottom panel one by one.

And see, the drawer is starting to take shape. This is the bottom view...

... and this is the top view.

Next, the sides have to be screwed together. Get 4 screws per drawer (16 for my 4 drawers) and get a drill a bit thinner than the inner bit of the screw.

Pre-drill the holes for the screws. Make sure to keep the panels in the correct to-be position. Wood can be a bit crooked sometimes.

When the screws are in, you should have a rock-solid drawer.

Now get the rails and mark the exact holes for the screws. This is one closest to the front...

... and the one close to the back.

Pre-drill the holes for these screws as well. Use a drill-bit suitable for the screws you use now.

These screws should be a lot smaller.

Put all the rails on this way.

And in go the drawers.

The drawers in place, sliding open and shut beautifully.

All that's missing now is a front for the drawers. At least they're functional. The front I'm going to make of 4mm plate. It has to look like the rest of the Expedit so I think I'll use a light pine and give it a good rubb of bees wax. We'll see.

Expedit hack 2: Drawers phase 1

To make more (=better imo) use of the Ikea Expedit cupboard we bought, I am making 2 sets of 2 drawers to fit in the square spaces of the Expedit. The idea is to make a seperate 'casing' that fits into the Expedit nice and tight and then the drawers can be attached to the casing. This way I don't have to damage (= screwing into) the cupboard which is nice if I ever want to do something else with it.

This entry describes the making of the casing. The next entry will be about the actual drawers themselves.

[EDIT] - This post is the first in a series. The next part can be found here.

I made this picture to show the basic materials we need. I never ended up using the tape measure though. Instead I used a normal, 30cm ruler. Much nicer.

To make the casing you would usually use 4 pieces of wood. Because I am using leftovers (nothing beats using leftovers!) I had to be a bit more creative so mine have 6 panels each, 2 on the sides and a bottom and top panel. All are 16mm thick. The square spaces inside the Ikea Expedit are 335x335x390mm. These panels are required PER casing:
- 2x 380x303mm (380 to leave room for the front panels that will go on the drawers)
- 4x 190x335mm

The screws I have chosen are 3mm thick and 40mm long. The drill I used to pre-drill the holes for these screws is half to 2/3's the thickness of the screw so 1.5-2mm.

Not shown but neccesary are a thinner drill-bit (1mm) and smaller screws (2x15mm) to attach the slider with.

Kick off by marking the holes to screw the side panels on the bottom and top panel. I chose to have the holes 30mm from the front or back. Of course they have to be half the thickness of the panel (=8mm) from the bottom or top.

When that's done, take a screw and a hammer and whack little holes in the middle of the marks. This makes keeping the drill steady a lot easier.

After drilling these holes there is a nice stack of panels to work with.

This is an example slider that we will use to make the drawers with. We have to mount these on the side panels before we put the whole casing together because after putting it together you can't reach them anymore.

These are the 2 parts the slider consists of. The top part is what has to be screwed on the side panels. Always be aware that there is a right and a left panel and their mounting is mirrored.

(Click picture to enlarge it somewhat)

Finding out where to drill the holes for the sliders requires a bit of maths. Nothing a 5 year old can't do ;-)

Alright then. The area below the dotted line (16mm from the bottom) is where the bottom panels will be attached. Just put your slider on the panel to find out how far from the bottom your slider has to be. Keep the slider-part that attaches to the actual drawer on while doing this. The line on 35mm from the bottom is the center of the holes in the slider I used.

35mm from the bottom means 19mm from the inside-bottom of the casing. This means that the center of the holes in the top-drawer slider have to be at 19mm + half the total height of the casing (=186,5).

Also, with both parts of the slider together, measure the distance from the front to the first hole in the slider you want to use. In my case this is 40mm.

Mark all the panels with these lines and also mark at about 40mm from the front of the panel.

Next, mark the holes. Put the slider on the line so that the line is visible right through the center of the holes in the slider and the 40mm mark (or whatever you are using) is in the center of the corresponding hole. Grab a pencil a draw circles in 1 or 2 other holes to fix the slider at. I did it this way because the distance between the holes was completely ridiculous. To ridiculous to remember anyway.

After all this marking, whack some little holes again and then pre-drill for the little screws. CAUTION! Make sure NOT to drill all the way through the panel, but only 10mm or so, depending on your screw.

Screw the glider parts on the panels.

Now pre-drill the holes into the bottom panel.

Also make room for the screw-head to sink.

Screw the first side panel onto the bottom panel and enjoy the result. It's coming together now!

Repeat this for the other side panel and the top panel.

Screw everything together and behold: A new casing is born!

See if the casing fits your Expedit well. It should go in smooth and steady. This is a bit important so the casing doesn't move when opening or closing the drawers later.

The finished casing in it's place.

The Expedit hack

I "hacked" the IKEA Expedit we bought yesterday by putting 4 metal legs underneath. It makes the cabinet look a lot better. Also because we need the space we can now put stuff underneath, like our shoes for example.

For this we need the following: 1 drill, 1 drillbit half the thickness of the screws we're using, 4 tablelegs with 4 screws each, a ruler and a pen.

Start by marking at 1,5cm from the edge.

Place the top of the leg on the wood and align it with the mark you made.

Use the pen to mark where to drill the holes for the screws.

We drill these holes to give the screw some room. You will notice this helps a lot. Be careful not to drill all the way through the wood!

Screw on the legs. CAUTION: Because the panels are hollow, don't screw in the screw towards the middle too tight.

There we go, we have a hacked IKEA Expedit that looks a LOT better now!

The IKEA Expedit

Not the hardest of things to put do but a good first post for this new blog. I'm putting together a piece of IKEA furniture. Most IKEA stuff comes with a pretty good manual on how to put it together, it's really not hard.

Although really simple tools are often included, for this project it's handy to have a hammer available.

So we needed storage space on a low budget, went to IKEA and returned with the "EXPEDIT".

The half version only has 1 package.

After opening.

All the little bits are hiding in a corner.

This is the contents of the bag. For this half-size EXPEDIT, all you really need are the dowels (wooden pins) and the long screws at the top. Use the (Allen) key provided to screw in the screws.

The felt pads can be put underneath to prevent scratching. All other parts are used to attach the cabinet onto a wall. For horizontal placement this is not neccesary though.

These are all the wooden panels inside the package.

Before starting, if you have a very hard floor to work on, leave the cardboard so you won't damage the wood.

Start with gently hammering all the dowels into the panels. Only in the holes told by the manual.

Put together 1 corner to start with.

Fix them gently by screwing in 2 long screws. Do NOT screw them in all the way, they should be tightened only when the whole thing has been put together.

Place 1 of the smallest panels over the dowels on the "short" side of the cabinet.

Then take a bigger panel and put it over the dowels in the "long" side.

You then fix the panel you just attached to the smaller panel by putting 2 new dowels into the holes. After this, you attach all other panels except for the fourth small panel. We'll attach that one later because it's going to fall off when we put the cabinet up lateron.

Then attach the second sidepanel. This is a bit tricky because it has to be done under an angle. Be patient and gently push it onto the small panel at the end untill the dowels from the inner panels are infront of the holes in the panel you're putting on. Then gently push the two long panels towards eachother. Also screw 2 big screws in. Do not tighten them all the way.

You may have to tip the cabinet over on it's side and lean on it to apply enough force to attach that last panel. WARNING: Do NOT try to attach it using a hammer. The panels are hollow and you could hit a hole in it.

After it's squeezed together put in the final little panel and attach the other side panel. You can put the 4 remaining screws in now, too.

Put the cabinet into the position it will be used in and tighten the screws. You can tighten them so much that they blend in very nice with the surface of the wood.

And voila, there is the Expedit!