Thread: Simple laundry cabinet with tilt-out cupboards

Been busy over the Cup weekend here.

Built:
1. Face frame for the cabinet
2. Doors for the tilt-outs and centre cupboard
3. Drawer on sliders
4. Decorative skirting
5. Boxes for the tilt-outs

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I've discovered the ingenuity of a face frame assembled in one piece: so much easier to get square and overlay on the carcass to hide imperfections. Still don't have a brad nailer so it was fixed using screws, then covered up with wood filler, and an overzealous amount of glue (as pictured!).

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Again, with the decorative skirting, no brad nailer means fixing with glue and screws (though this pic is just a dry fit before trimming further to size and attaching permanently. Yes, I removed the sticker with a heat gun ).

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One of the side cupboard tilt-outs, with the box attached. Joinery using the much-loved newbie method of pocket holes!

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This is how one the tilt-out cupboards look, fitted into the cabinet. I don't yet have any stoppers in place to limit how far it tilts out. I may just opt for some stop-blocks mounted to the sides inside the cabinet cavity, using some scraps. With a stop-block mounted on the sides it will catch the base of the box as it is tilted forward. Won't be fancy, but will work.

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All components fitted in place. Aside from the stop-blocks, the base unit is ready for painting.

Next steps:
- The wife to settle on a paint colour for the base
- The wife to select the door furnishings
- Start working on the bench top

It's shaping up nicely, despite a number of faults and re-cuts of certain pieces after several mistakes, but I'm surprised at how quickly this has come together. Certainly a lot quicker than it took me to build my farmhouse buffet table to the same state - I'm putting that down to a little more experience, learnings from past projects, and a few new tools to make some jobs easier.

Having great fun building this out

Next steps:
- The wife to settle on a paint colour for the base
- The wife to select the door furnishings
- Start working on the bench top

- the wife to paint it, this way any stuffups its her fault

Looking good so far! And good on you for letting the wife decide on the aesthetic department I usually ask my wife for suggestions but she often says 'Up to you, it's your project'. But when it's finished, she'll comment on my choices anyway

Are the tilt outs gong to have a back on them?

Also a suggestion for the end panels (assuming they are going to be seen) would be to use the sections you have in the doors and repeat them on the end panels (just like inserting a false door) this would balance the ends of the unit up to look like the doors.

Been a while, but I've been chipping away here and there to progress this build.

Where I left off last time, I needed to devise a method to prevent my tilt-out cupboards from pulling all the way out, so this was my solution - some angled blocks glued and screwed into the sides of the cavity to catch the floor of the tilt-out as it pulls out:

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This works well, but I didn't account for the weight of the tilt-outs so given the height of my stoppers you have to hold the cupboard open else it tips back into the cabinet. Another problem I created for myself with this solution was that I no longer had access to remove the hinges of the tilt-outs to disassemble for painting/finishing. So I ended up removing the back panels to gain access to the cabinet cavity - more trouble than it was worth and it was an awkward way to paint and I couldn't get into every nook and cranny.

It took me to the next monring to realise that I could knock out the pins from the hinges to remove them completely to then get access to the entire cavity and do a decent repaint. Yes, I'm slow ...

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The wife wanted a soft-pink to match some other accents in the room that this will end up in. I used a spray gun for the first time to do both the undercoats and topcoats. Then brushed on a clear coat enamel to finish all components and then to re-assemble the unit.

I'm not 100% happy with my shadowlines(?) around the doors and drawer and my centre cupboard pulls open from the right instead of the left but I guess these will annoy me yet be passable for most people. Still, gives me something to improve on for future projects. The drawer slides I bought have a soft-close mechanism, but they stick when pulling the drawer out - not sure if that will improve over time with use or I just bought some dodgy slides.

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Next on the agenda is the benchtop which will be a natural wood finish to contrast the cabinet. Should turn out nice.

Aaaaand we're done!

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For the bench, I cheated and bought a pre-fabbed bench from Bunnings and then cut it to size. It's a merbau top and in hindsight is perhaps a little darker than I had first thought once it was coated with some Osmo poly oil wax.

I added some fluting(?) to the top of the bench and profiled the front with a 45º chamfer. (I love my Carbitool bits!)

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Cabinet is now in it's final home, fitted out with a couple of laundry hampers in each of the tilt-out cupboards, and the drawer and cupboard already filled up and put to good use.

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All in all, pretty happy with how it turned out.

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I've been watching your progress with interest, and I am very impressed with your work.

One of my future projects will be something similar but for garbage. Nowadays we actually have 6 garbage bins in the house: general garbage, general recycling, plastic bottles and cartons that can be returned to get back your deposit, glass bottles that can be returned to get back your deposit (and go into a different return machine to the plastic bottles), soft plastics and batteries! And this doesn't include the organics bin for kitchen scraps.

My plan is to make, effectively, a buffet and hutch, with 4 "doors" for the general garbage and the recyclables, with drawers in the middle for the soft plastics and batteries. The organics I keep in a cabby on the kitchen bench but may include it into the buffet too. The hutch will be glass fronted for storing fancy glasses/nice dinner service/etc to give the overall look of a normal piece of furniture, so no-one thinks it's really a garbage bin!

Glenn

Originally Posted by woodg62

I've been watching your progress with interest, and I am very impressed with your work.

One of my future projects will be something similar but for garbage.

Thank you! I think I'm improving - still making plenty of mistakes along the way.

I first thought of the idea from seeing units built for garbage sorting, so I modified the design a little (probably a little deeper for laundry than for garbage) but the concept is the pretty much the same.

Originally Posted by Waikikamukau

I first thought of the idea from seeing units built for garbage sorting,

LOL. I got my idea for a garbage cabinet from a laundry cupboard purchased from Aldi!

Nice work mate. Bunnings have some really nice 18mm solid Red Oak panels which I've used before in projects, they're not finger jointed in the traditional sense either, they're made up of 150-250mm wide laminated strips which span the length of the board rather than being finger length ones.