Art Room Cabinetry- Part I

I am also working on a number of other things in the shop.  At this time, I would say that I have at least 4 different, ongoing projects. One of those is a cabinetry job for a coworker.  They wanted some cabinets for their art room to use as a work station.  They came up with the design and I began building.

First was to make the carcasses of the cabinets.  This was rather straightforward and resulted in two cabinets, mirrors of each other.

Then it came time to build the face frame.  Since the cabinets would eventually be painted, I made the face frame out of poplar.  The nice thing about building the face frame apart from the cabinets is that you can use pocket screws to attach it to the carcass, they will never be seen.  It did take a lot of clamps though…

I then began the process of making and fitting the drawers.  The original design called for 4 little drawers and 1 larger drawer, but after understanding that the drawers needed to be deep enough to hold stacks of paper, I decided that 4 shallower drawers would be too small.  I really beefed up the drawer bottoms to hold heavy art supplies and I used 100lb rated, full extension ball bearing drawer slides.

I don’t have any pictures, but there were doors added at this stage as well.  They are simple frame and panel doors made from poplar and ¼” hardwood plywood panels. The last step on the cabinets was finishing.  The exterior got coated with primer and then I sprayed 2 coats of bright white enamel semi-gloss.  The drawer fronts and doors were painted as well.

The final touch was the hardware.  It was chosen by the customer and it really gives it a good look.

The next part is building the countertop that will cover these cabinets.  I am still in the process of completing that phase, so I will be able to take more pictures of the build!