Cabinets and Booze

The magic happened when I built a new dresser. What to do with the old dresser? It was a little haphazard and falling apart which is how I ended up replacing it to begin with. I contemplated just throwing it out, but you know that's not really in my nature. I had an idea. I tossed the drawers, but kept the the base. I had the perfect project...I just needed to get it downstairs. It was too big and heavy to lift by myself. My bright idea was to slide it, slowly down the staircase.

I do realize how dangerous this sounds, but I didn't have much choice. I was just about to take the plunge when I decided to remove the back to make it easier to hold and thus control. Once the back was removed though I realized that it was pretty wobbly. Why you ask? I never permanently bonded the dresser. Everything was being held together with screws and dowels. What a giant relief. I broke it down, and carried the pieces downstairs.

What am I making? I am going to make a cabinet with wood doors. I have had these pieces of 1x4s for a while now just waiting for the perfect project to use them on. First I fixed the dresser pieces up. They had quite a few holes and dings from all the years of wear and tear. I filled in everything with wood filler, and then sanded each piece down. Being that these were originally laminate, I thought it would be best to give them a layer of Zinser Primer for better adhesion. Then I painted everything black using some left over Satin paint I had from the dresser. 

I put all of the pieces together and gave it a coat of Semi-Gloss Polyurethane. Next I assembled the legs. I used pipes that were part of an old desk I used to have. 

Next I worked on the inside. I added 2 pieces to the front sides, and a piece down the middle.  

I added a strip of 1x2s to each side. These would serve as supports for the shelf. 

I secured the shelf supports inside with the nail gun. Unfortunately I underestimated the width, and the nails punctured the side of the base from the inside. 

I had to go over the holes with wood filler, and then more paint. I then cranked up the table saw and cut the last 2 pieces. I used some leftover 1/2" plywood to make a shelf, and a divider for the bottom section. 

I painted all the pieces black, and secured everything with the nail gun. The base was done.

Now comes the exciting part, the doors. This is basically what the whole idea was based around. I had these wood slats from an old IKEA bed that I used to have. The bed is long gone, but I kept the slats thinking I would use them for something later. Well now is later. 

For the doors I am going for a herringbone design. First I had to remove the staples and rope that connected the slats together. I thought this was going to be an awful and grueling task at first, but once I got in a rhythm it was not so bad. Now I had never done this before, so I had to be very careful in lining everything up. I am way too particular to have crooked furniture. I started by cutting a few 45 degree angle cuts on the miter saw. I tested them out, and they didn't work. The piece was now not long enough to reach all the way across. So I tried again. This time stretching the piece all the way across first, and then seeing what angle that needed to be...31 degrees. 

Good thing I paid attention in Geometry. Remember when you always thought Math was stupid, and would never use it in real life. Well here we are. I cut each piece and laid them down one by one. Half way through it was looking good. I couldn't believe this was happening. 

I kept placing each piece until I had covered the entire opening.

At this point I was kind of elated. I couldn't believe how good it was looking. I got real excited. To assemble the doors I started by lightly gluing the pieces together. I laid them down on my work table and used a clamped ruler to keep the straight edge and line them all up perfectly. 

I let it dry overnight so the pieces could get a nice bond. I didn't need a permanent hold, just enough so that I could flip it over. I added 1/4" oak on the inside to serve as an anchor for all of the pieces and create a more permanent bond.  

Now it was time to cut. I was super SUPER nervous about this. The doors had to essentially line up perfectly together. A mistake here could be catastrophic. I held my breathe and measured 4 times before doing anything. The inside pieces were already cut, because that's how I lined them up. I started with the bottom. I had to raise the blade twice. I started pushing the door through the table saw. A 1/3 of the way in I hit a bump. I got nervous, and gently pulled the door out. I turned it over, and went for it again. I held my breathe the entire time, but success! Next I cut the outside edge. Once again success. Before doing the last cut, I laid them down on top of the opening to test that it was going well. I was quite satisfied. 

Actually I almost left the doors just like this. It kind of reminded me of the top of a Decepticon. How cool would that have been. 

Only thing left was to cut off the tops. This was going to be a little difficult. The door height needed to be 31", but my saw only extended to 27". I pulled the guard all the way out, and was prepared to make some sort of extender. Well wouldn't you know, the entire surface was exactly 31 1/8". Friggin' EUREKA! However, that was without the guard (which was very necessary). So, to compensate I added a piece of scrap wood with some clamps to the end creating a barrier. Pretty genius if you ask me. 

I held my breathe again, and went for it. It worked. YES! YES! YES! I now had 2 awesome doors.

I was so excited I could pinch myself. At this point I was on a roll, so I kept going. Next I sanded both doors. I usually hate sanding, but it was necessary in this instance. I started with the back side, and gave it a light sanding with my sanding block. No one would see it, so no need to be perfect. For the front I pulled out my orbital sander. I did one pass with the 150 grit sandpaper, and then another with the 220 to finish it off. I wiped them down, and prepared for stain. I know I don't normally stain, but for this I wanted a different look. I chose Golden Pecan.

Stain is messy, so I put on my messy clothes. I started with the back, and brushed on one coat of stain. They were looking good, and once again I got excited. I wanted them a little darker though, so I did another coat of stain. Now they were perfect.

I repeated the process on the front. 

I let the stain dry for 24 hours. Since I don't normally mess with stain, I decided to google the proper way to seal and polyurethane. Good thing I did because sealing stain is not like regular Latex Acrylic. I could have used an oil stain and that would have helped. However, I only had water based. So, I decided to spray the doors first with some spray polyurethane as a barrier. Then once that dried I went over it with the water based stain. I tried the process on the back first in case anything went wrong. I would have been devastated if I ruined the doors at this point. It looked good. No problems, so I proceeded. 

A friend helped me carry it upstairs to the kitchen. I decided to move it before adding the back and doors. Mainly to cut down on weight. Once upstairs I measured where the doors and the hardware should go. I bought 2 packs of black door hinges. I started by screwing one side to the back of the doors. 

Then I screwed the other side into the base. This was actually a lot more difficult than I anticipated. They lined up perfectly by themselves. Lining them up with the hardware was a different story. Also I think I underestimated how much clearance I needed for the hardware. So the doors plus the hinges were a smidgen larger than they should have been. Not ideal, but not catastrophic either. I made it work, and screwed them in place.

The first time I stood the cabinet up, the doors shifted and over lapped. A moment of defeat, but I wasn't out of it. I laid it back on the floor, and reset both doors. I stood it back up, and VOILA. 

To finish it off I used panel nails to secure the back piece in place. I recycled the back that actually came with the dresser. The outside I painted black, and the inside I spray painted a teal color. No reason, just thought a pop of color would be nice. 

Final piece were knobs. Now, I was completely undecided about this and spent hours online looking for the perfect set. I narrowed it down to 6 of them.

I tested them all, and settled on these large Art Deco ones. Funny thing is I saw these early on and pretty quickly fell in love with them. You know me though, I still spent the next 2 hours looking at every option.

So with that, my new cabinet is done.

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What do you think? I am nothing short of in LOVE. Honestly, I'm quite impressed with myself. I was actually quite nervous upon attempting this project. I had such high expectations. Glad to see it all worked out. Also cool tidbit in case you didn't notice, most of the materials I used was stuff I already had in the house. Go figure! Snaps for recycling. I plan on filling the cabinet with booze. However, its is nice and deep so I can see that possibly changing in the future. 

Until then though...It's on to the next project.