Modular Draws From Ply

My wife's wardrobe needed an overhaul so I went through the process of looking at Ikea and the like for solutions, but none of them were particularly well suited to the space as the drawers were all 400ish deep which would encroach too much into the narrow wardrobe space and most had cheap short throw drawer slides. They were also all generally very expensive.

I also really wanted the drawers to have dividers which makes a massive difference to being able to keep the drawers tidy.

So, I set about making my own by finding the most efficient way to utilise the stock size sheets of ply I can get from the big green hardware store. I settled on the 896x1200x7mm ply which was readily available and had A:A grade faces should I decide to paint them.

The cutlist I worked out gives you 7 draws from:

• 3 x Sheets of ply 7 x 896 x 1200mm
• 3 x Sheets of MDF/Ply 3 x 1200 x 600mm (base)

Tools needed are:

• Panel/Table/Track/Circular saw
• Measuring tools
• Yellow glue (I used Titebond II)
• Bar/Sash/Parallel Clamps
• Strap Clamp
• Framing square

Using the cutlist shown here, you can get 7 draws for every 3 sheets of thick and 3 sheets of thin stock

You can also opt to do a couple of double height draws for more bulky items by cutting 297mm strips instead of 147mm (I opted for 6 standard height and 3 double height drawers).

Once everything is cut out, 14 of the smaller panels need to be trimmed from 147 to 140 to allow for the base. These will form the centre dividers.

I used a dado stack to in my table saw to cut the slot in all the front and back pieces for the dividers and sides.

The same dado setup was then used on the front, back and sides to cut a grove for the base to sit in (on the long sides).

*Note: The cutlist is laid out with a blade kerf of 2.5mm, but should work with blades up to 2.8mm. If your blade is thicker than that, you can just knock 1mm off every dimension to have it work.

Then its just a matter of gluing everything together. I did one at a time with about 2 hours in between to give the glue time to take.

Note: 6 of the bases are in one piece (892 x 296mm), the other 1 you need to use the 2 odd size base pieces which should meet under one of the dividers.

Make sure you assemble the draw all at once including the base as the base will help you end up with a drawer that is square. I also used a framing square to check before letting the glue go too far.

Everything was then left for a few days to let the glue completely cure (and for it to be the weekend again).

How you decide to mount these drawers is up to you. I decided to build these into the wardrobe using melamine sheets for the surround. I used 300mm full extension 'push to open' drawer slides so I didn't need handles you can walk into in the narrow space.

The drawer fronts are optional too, you could just paint the ply, I opted to make some melamine fronts with a little oiled timber accent.

This has added an enormous amount of storage to the space and was completed for quite a bit less than the equivalent flatpack sets would have cost.