Adding drawers to a bathroom vanity - Help please!

[Mike Manning]

First time poster here. I know this is probably rambling but I gotta get it out here to get your thoughts!

My wife wants me to add some drawers to her bathroom vanity. I've done some things with dimensional lumber in the garage and my "shop" (3rd car garage). This spring I made a box using hand planes and my first hand-sewn dovetails. Very satisfying. My only experience doing anything with drawers was doing a few repairs in the kitchen where the rear screws holding the cheap slides in the particle board cabinets had pulled out. Anyway, SWMBO wants 'em and I figure I can save a lot of money doing it myself. I also think I may do as well as whoever we'd hire but I need some advice. I don't know the right terminology so please bear with me.

I've included a couple of pics (below) of the vanity as it exists today. I definitely am not up to doing face frame drawers on this. I thought I could just do drawers that were equally spaced (vertically) using low-end HD slides attached to the sides (edge) of the cabinet opening and attached in the rear to the cabinet. Knowing how poor the materials are for these cabinets I already expected I should beef up the rear before attaching the slide sockets. The height of the cabinet behind this right vanity door is appx 16 3/8". I was thinking of 3 drawers appx 4 3/4" tall with appx 1/2" space between each drawer. I'm going to make them out of 1/2" Baltic Birch plywood with 1/4" floating drawer bottoms. The depth of this cabinet is appx 20 3/8". I've already bought some lower end 18" drawer slides at HD.

I figured I would attach the drawer slides to the front edge of the cabinet and at the rear to some solid wood skeleton (pine 2x4? or poplar). I hope appx 16" deep drawers would all align flush with each other as long as I get the slides aligned when I install them. I'll have to add some additional pieces to the edge of the cabinet for the hinge side slides in order to make sure the drawers clear the hinges. I've done all the measuring and those hinges stick out appx 7/8" from the front edge. I figured add a 3/4" strip to the current edge of the cabinet. Once the slide is added there that 3/4" plus the 1/2" for the slide should allow the drawers to clear the 7/8" protrusion of the hinges.

I'd like to just do a round over on the drawers, sand well and then use a clear finish. I have no experience (beyond jr high 50 years ago) with finishes so your advice would be very useful. Do I finish the bottom and drawers separately so they don't stick? What clear finishes are best? I'm hoping to get a good router out of doing this work. :-) I'd like to know what bit would round those 1/2" drawers? Also, there isn't a lot of space in here for me to work and I'm a big guy 6' 3" 250 lbs. So building the drawer boxes in the shop and basically just minimally trying to attach slides into this cabinet was what I was striving for.

Your thoughts on what you'd do, things to know about doing drawers/using drawer slides/etc, better, easier ways to get this done,... would all be appreciated!

PS.
- Using the cheapo slides because she's just putting cosmetic kind of stuff in these drawers.
- Tools at my disposal, Delta contractors TS, Delta mid-50s BS, most basic WW'ing hand tools, etc.

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[Andy Giddings]

Mike, are you going to put the drawers behind the door or are you getting rid of the door altogether? I would recommend keeping the door as you won't have to worry about matching the exterior.

Your drawer materials are fine - I've built something very similar for the kitchen and loaded them up with heavy pots/pans so strength should not be an issue. For finish, you can assemble the drawers and then apply a water based clear finish - I like General Finishes, a bit pricey but you get a great looking finish even with a foam brush.

In terms of fixing the slides, you can take the approach that the original manufacturer used - block out the rear of the cabinet and use angle brackets to fix the slides. You're not talking about a lot of weight in the drawers so strength should not be a concern. Blocking out the sides would also work but would require a frame as one side seems to be open

[Dan Friedrichs]

Mike, sounds like you're planning to leave the door in place and just put drawers behind it? Sounds like a good plan. There's nothing rocket-sciencey about attaching slides to a cabinet carcass - whatever it takes to secure them. Screw the front to the face frame and pad out the back (if necessary) to support them. I've never seen a drawer box with a rounded over top (I assume that's what you're referring to?) - it will look funny where the rounded-over side intersects the front and back pieces. I'd just build the boxes square and soften the edges a bit with sandpaper.

Re: finishing - if the bottom is plywood, I wouldn't bother finishing it separately. If it's solid wood, might be a good idea to prefinish to avoid some wood movement leaving you with a visible unfinished gap around the edges.

[Mike Manning]

Andy, I am putting the drawers behind the door. I will look into General Finishes.

Dan, I really appreciate your thoughts on NOT rounding over the top edges. I had already given some thought as to how the corners would come together. In my mind it seemed like they really wouldn't exactly.

Thanks for all the feedback from both of you. Exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to hear!

[Andy Giddings]

Mike, on the rounding of the top - you can do it if you want to. I've used a full rounded edge on both the inside and outside of the top for front, back and side pieces. Agree with Dan that it will look and feel odd if you don't do all parts of the drawer top. There is some manual work to make the joint blend in but its minimal with birch ply

[Jim Becker]

FYI, if you're going to put the drawers behind the door, you need to be able to fully open the door so that it doesn't interfere with the drawers. That shouldn't be a problem since you have an overlay door, but for folks doing similar with inset doors...in some situations, it presents a challenge.

[Lee Schierer]

Your drawer design and materials are going to work just fine. As far as rounding over is concerned, an 1/8" radius roundover bit should work just fine. Wait to do the round over after the drawer boxes are assembled, then your corners will get rounded over as they meet. I round over the top edges of all the drawers I make.

You have accounted for the hinges as far as getting the drawers to slide past them, however, the hinges will also be across the fronts of the drawers when the doo closes. You will need to set the drawer fronts back into the cabinet far enough to clear the hinges when the door closes.

Depending on your drawer height, you may need to scoop down the center front a bit to provide a hand hold to get the drawer open or else attach a drawer pull that will not interfere with the door closing.

[glenn bradley]

As Jim observed, clearance will be a factor in your design. If the door hinges don't allow an opening that will give you a clear shot for a drawer box 1" narrower than your opening you may need to account for that with stand-offs on the hinge side or some other method. These will keep you door from getting scarred on the inside face. You're basically talking about 'pullouts'. If you do a search on that term I think you will find some good examples that may give you some ideas.

[Mike Manning]

Lee, I'd thought about the drawers having to be offset back a little for the door but I'd overlooked the hinges thus far in my planning. I don't know what type of hinges these are but the "pocket" has about at 1/8" protrusion on the inside of the door that I'll have to account for. Thank you for bringing that to my attention! I had already considered getting the drawers open and I was considering a "notch" in the top middle of the drawer fronts to allow one to get a purchase to get them open. I'm planning on having 3/4" space between the 3 drawers which I think will be enough room that the "notch" isn't necessary. Thoughts?

Pic of a hinge below...what type are these?

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[Mike Manning]

Thanks Jim! I'll checkout pullouts. I had not searched on that although I've heard the word and what comes immediately to my mind is exactly what I'm doing!

[Wakahisa Shinta]

Hi Mike. Are you trying to do something like these?

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If so, the cabinet doors must clear the inner edge of the face frame in order for the pull-out shelves/drawers + slides to operate.

[Jamie Buxton]

In the interest of simplifying the project, you might consider buying the drawers. Shops exist that just make drawer boxes to your measurements. Western Dovetail is one example -- www.drawer.com . They do a good job, and aren't horribly expensive.

[John TenEyck]

I just did some drawers that fit behind doors. The drawers completely fill the cabinet opening, so I made hand cutouts in the drawer fronts. I added filler strips inside the cabinet so the drawers would clear the door hinges. The drawers ride on side mounted soft close slides by K&V. The drawers are Baltic birch plywood with 1/2" finger joints; very solid. The finish is GF's EnduroVar over Sealcoat shellac.

John

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[Mike Manning]

John, I watched several videos on youtube this afternoon on making a box joint jigs. These look very nice. Could I trouble you for a pic of your filler strips? Are they on the edge of the cabinet just inside the door? I'll have to do something similar on the hinge sides to make sure there is sufficient clearance. The jpgs are so small I can't really see the finish. Thank you for sharing!

[Mike Manning]

Thanks Wakahisa! I'll be doing something similar but the drawer faces will only have 3/4" space between them. Thanks for responding!

Jamie, I looked at a couple of places but I'll enjoy doing it myself and will do it a bit cheaper. Thanks for mentioning it.