Pallet Wood LEGO Storage/Play Cabinet

Our LEGOs outgrew the last storage cabinet I made, so this time I made a better one. You can watch this video to see how OR read the following Instructable. I hope this inspires you to create and make your own storage solutions. -t

I carefully brought my pallets outside and dismantled them using a few techniques. I then denailed them very carefully, ran all the boards through a bench planer and trimmed off the rough edges on the table saw. Now I had some nice stock to work with.

I made my cabinet to have 15" X15" interior cargo areas so I could fit full LEGO baseplates inside. SO the exterior of the cabinet is a couple inches longer than 30" and 15" deep, plus the doors. Mine is about 24" tall but obviously you can use your own measurements.

I cut my 1/2" thick pallet boards to length and used my router table to make aprox 1/4" rabbets on both sides of the boards so the pallet slats can overlap. I made very simple, 1" wide frames to create each panel and glued the half-lapped boards in to place, using brad nails to hold them. This method allows the volatile pallet wood to move a little without creating big gaps in the sides.

Once I created my three vertical panels, I glued on 1/2" runners to hold the drawers, lined them up and added a top and bottom out of more half-lapped boards. I used the thicker 3/4" pallet boards for this and secured them with glue and screws, then capped the screws with plugs.

There was some planing and sanding to do.

These are more like boxes that we can put in the cabinet. I had a bunch of odd-sized strips of plexiglass left over, so i was able to make two of the sides of each box clear, to facilitate the hunt for the perfect LEGO pieces. This would be expensive to buy.

I used my 3/4" pallet cutoffs to make the other sides of the boxes and cut 1/4" plywood to make the bottoms. No fancy construction here, I just lined up the two wood sides to the bottom and glued and nailed them in place. I then drilled screw holes in the plexiglass and screwed them on to the other sides. A little sanding was needed.

I thought I was done, but my wife asked me to add doors so our house didn't look like a toy store when the LEGOs weren't in use. This was a great idea but, of course, there are still always LEGO sculptures on top of the cabinet, so... :)

I mimicked the side panels' construction and used some cr@p handles and hinges I had salvaged from other things. I really like the doors and it gives the piece a great, mod look.

I didn't finish it as we have a fish tank stand I made in similar fashion right next to it that is not finished, so the patinas will eventually even out.

All that's left to do is play!

Be good,

Tim