I promised myself that my next project update would be the final one...didn't realize it would take another four weeks, but as you will see, there was quite a bit of work to finish up. Also, we took off a week to take care of the lawn and flower beds.
Before assembling the two smaller drawers, I had to fix the miscut sides. They were cut 1/8" too short on one side, and I decided to fix it instead of wasting four pieces of plywood. Using a circular saw, I cut slivers of wood 1/8" thick tapering down to nothing over about 2'.
I used a router to shave off the excess after the glue dried. No one will ever notice...
With that hurdle overcome, the boxes can be assembled. The bottoms were glued, nailed and screwed down. When in doubt, make it stout!
Since the tops plywood edges are exposed, we decided to veneer them.
The drawer fronts were cut from 1x12 poplar, and I used a Roman Ogee router bit to finish the edges.
Here's the platform for the pullout pantry with the glides attached.
With the platform installed, all we have to do is put the pantry on top and screw it down.
But first we have to build the pantry. During the design process, we were debating what shelf height was required. We decided on five slightly smaller shelves instead of four taller ones, but first needed to test our design.
Can of soup = pass...
Cheez-Its = fail. They'll have to find a home somewhere else.
I decided that the front and back panels of the pantry needed to be more substantial, so I glued two pieces of 1/2" pieces of plywood together.
After each shelf was assembled, the exposed plywood on the edges were veneered.
Now it's assembly time. The first two shelves are in place.
The next three are screwed in, then the back panel is attached. All exposed pocket holes are patched and the pantry is primed and painted.
Before installing the pantry, we decided to pull the floors up. Seemed like a good time to do this since the pantry itself is pretty heavy and may scuff the floor during installation. The plan is to re-do this area so that the floors extend into the small 4"x36" area to the right, inside the pantry door jamb. Seems like a lot of work for a small detail, but the floors install rather easily.
Here I lift the pantry onto the sliding platform. It's not light!
It works!
And it fits! It's a miracle!
At first, I thought I would have one glide oriented sideways at the top of the pantry to provide lateral stability. This is what I've seen on other pullout pantries. But the glides we bought didn't seem to be designed to work sideways, so we decided to put them on the sides. I had to add some support for the right glide.
Here's the top glides installed.
It took a weekend just to do the trim work. Here all the trim is in, and the walls are taped in preparation for painting. Also, the floors were re-installed so they now entend into the pantry.
Between coats of paint, I work on the custom pantry doors. They are a shaker style to match the doors in our house. The door frames are made from 1x3 poplar, and the center panels are 1/2" birch plywood. Now it's time for patching, sanding, priming and painting.
These magnets mounted to the door and jamb are designed to help keep the door closed.
Doors are installed!
The glides on the side of the pantry barely miss scraping the door. Just like I planned it :O)
The pantry was designed so that you only need the right door open to access it.
Here's a closeup of the some of the trimwork.
Now we can install the glides and drawer boxes. All of them fit! A small miracle considering the glides have a 1/16" tolerance to work with.
Cendy gives a hand to help attach the drawer fronts. The strip on the left was attached temporarily to help us keep the drawers in line.
Very impressive, guys!! It's been a pleasure following the progress...hope to hang out soon (and see the finished product!!)
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