Drawers for the Kitchen

Our kitchen not only got a facelift but it needed some help in the efficiency department. Part of that was fixed by swapping the refrigerator and cabinets. But another issues was our pantry. It isn’t very large to begin with, but it’s also narrow and deep which really limited the usable space and I easily forgot what I had shoved way back in the shadows. To remedy this I decided to add drawers to not only the pantry but all the lower cabinets in our kitchen. After shopping around I realized that there were very few size options in ready-to-buy drawers and to purchase custom built drawers was quite and investment, so I decided to build my own. I could maximize my space and save some money. I ended up building the drawers for about $25 each.

Here’s how I built them. I used 3/4″x4″ wood for the the drawer sides. I cut the drawer fronts and backs a half inch short of the width of my cabinet opening. Then I cut the sides 1 1/2 inch short of the depth I wanted my final drawer to be since the front and back would add 1 1/2 inch of depth to my final drawer.

Then I cut the bases for my drawers from 1/4 inch thick wood. I used my already cut drawer front to be sure my table saw was set to the exact same width for my drawer bases, rather than trying to measure perfectly.

I did the exact same thing to cut the drawer bases to the exact depth and included the drawer front and back stacked against the side.

Once I cut all the pieces for all my drawers I started assembling using wood glue and a nail gun with 1 1/4 inch nails.

I used wood glue on all my joints and nailed the front and back of the drawer to the sides.

Then I attached the drawer base with wood glue and then nailed it in place.

It took me about 2 hours to cut and assemble 7 drawers (after my initial trial run with the first 4 drawers). I did 11 drawers in total throughout the kitchen.

I attached full-extension drawer slide to my shelves and then attached those to the base of my drawers. Because my drawer slides are attached to the base of my drawers, and not the sides, I’m not worried about the contents of my drawers being too heavy and causing the bottoms to fall out over time. The weight is supported by the shelves already in my cabinets.