Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Customizing standard lower door cabinets with pull outs

 In our last home I added some custom drawer organizers and they helped keep me very organized in the kitchen. About a year ago I added these two pull outs for our container cabinet...you know how messy these things can get.These simple box drawers have kept this so organized I had to add more to most of our lower kitchen cabinets. You can go to the big box store and buy pre-made pull outs but they are very pricey.
So my solution is to just create my own pull outs, it's easy and inexpensive.
Actually the ones I worked on this weekend only cost me the price of the drawer hardware, about $5 each as I used only scraps from other projects to make two new pull outs.
 Here is our snack cabinet in the island, it is a mess, I won't tell you what I think of those half shelves... they are DUMB!
I think if I do ever build again I will have mostly drawers for lower cabinets.

The first step was to clean out all the old stuff and there was a lot due to it's messy state.
 I then cut these strips of wood to attach to the side of the cabinets to then attach the slides to these strips of wood so that the pull outs would clear the hinges.

 It's pretty easy and straight forward.
 I then measured the distance between the slides and cut a piece of plywood and dry fit it before creating the sides of the pull out.

 I used very simple butt joints, these corner clamps make the job easier. Attach the sides to the bottom of the drawer through the holes on the slide, using flat head screws. I made sure to pre-drill to avoid cracking and splitting the wood.


 After adding this single pull out I had the full bottom shelf to move the cereal into this space which emptied almost an entire cabinet...one pull out and I gained an empty cabinet...what a win.
 I will add a lower pull out when the mood strikes...hopefully next week
 Then I tacked this mess, I had the material to build a pull out for the left narrow cabinet.
 Its so nice to not have to kneel down to dig into a base cabinet.Nothing will be lost again...I thought I was out of birthday candles and after this makeover I found I have a bunch.
 I wasn't totally out of steam after the other two additions so I tackled this messy baking drawer...it took a little pine 1x2 and a few cuts,I secured the wood to the drawer with just gorilla glue. This stuff it great. I did the same in the drawer beside the stove and it has worked and lasted beautifully.

Honestly I tend to be kinda messy in drawers and cabinets so this is a really necessity for me. It's a no brainer to keep things tidy when everything has a spot.

There you have it a little pretty simple beginners project.

Thanks for stopping by...


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