Are you ready to see our finished drawers? Because I am still freaking out about them… they are amazing!!! Is it sad that I get so excited about cabinet drawers? Last Monday I showed you how our old wooden drawer slides were not working for us. So we started the process of breaking down our old drawers to resize them to fit the new metal slides (we decided to use the Blumotion Drawer Slides), find the post here.
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After cutting the wood with the table saw, we needed to cut a notch out of the back of the drawer for the slide to run through. I took my ruler and pencil and created a 1-1/4″ mark to cut with a jig saw. This notch will be on both ends of the drawer back (this can also be done with the drawer assembled).
Next, I sanded all the wood with #220 grit sandpaper, making sure the wood was still labeled. Now I could start rebuilding the cabinet drawers. To do this, I took all the pieces needed for one drawer (front, side, back, & bottom).
Then taking one side piece, I inserted the bottom into the dado.
Next, I placed the backboard into the dado. My cabinets are made with a groove in the back of the sideboard that the backboard fits into. I then added glue to the back board. I did make sure all the pieces fit together first before gluing.
And then I placed the other side board into the dado, after getting everything flush, I put 2″ nails into the side piece to hold the backboard into place. Then I turned the wood over to the other side, carefully, and completed the same process of adding glue and nails.
Next was adding the front of the drawer, first I turned the wood so the back piece was on the ground. I then glued both tops of the side pieces and placed the drawer front onto the wood. After making sure everything was level, I nailed 2″ finishing nails into the front of the drawer. I will be adding trim to the cabinets so these nails will be hidden.
I did this process to create all the drawers. Here are all 6 of my drawers completed… If you notice one drawer front is different because the old one had been nailed together because it was breaking apart, so we created a new one.
Before we could install the metal slides, we needed to remove the old wooden ones. To do this, I took our folding jab saw with a metal blade and sawed through the nails holding the wood to the frame. Next, I added wood filler, if needed, and sanded the area.
It was now time to drill the hole for the slides (the metal locator tab, holds the back of the drawer), see picture below.
Instead of measuring like the instructions said, I took the slide and placed it on the drawer (drawer front was on the ground). After making sure the slide was in the correct position (right along the side), I then pressed the back of the slide against the wood. This created a dent in the wood. Next, I took a 1/4″ drill bit and drilled a hole into the dent (you do not need to drill all the way through the wood just enough for the metal locator).
Now we were ready to add the Blumotion drawer slides to the cabinet.
SUPPLIES:
– Blumotion Drawer Slides
– “L” Locking Device
– “R” Locking Device
– Box of #6: 5/8″ Wood Screws
– Magnetic Level
– Drill
First was adding the locking devices. This is when I discovered that I should have fixed the drawer length before assembling them, I talked about this before. To fix my problem, I took a 1/4″ trim piece and cut it down to the right size. If you are wondering how I knew I need 1/4″ it was because I placed the locking device on the cabinet bottom corner. Then I added the slide to the drawer and moved the locking device to click into place. This showed me the gap I had between the locking device and the wood which in this case was 1/4″.
Here is my 1/4″ trim piece to fix my problem.
Next, I put wood glue on the back of the trim piece.
Then I nailed it to the drawer using 5/8″ nails, making sure I did not nail where the locking devices would be screwed into the wood.
If your drawer is not long enough you can add a trim piece to the back of the drawer. Yes, I found out the hard way that two of my drawers were way too big for the 18″ slide. But the drawer could not be longer because of the pipe behind them, so I had to break down the drawers twice. Only to find out that I cut off more than I needed (I was in a hurry…) by adding the 3/4″ piece of wood solved my problem.
Now I could finally add my locking devices, the easiest way I found to do this was by placing the locking device on the R or L side of the cabinet. Then pressing the locking device toward the side and pressing down at the same time. I then screwed the device into place, making sure to add the screw only at a slight angle. I then added the other locking device the same way.
Here is the drawer already!!!
Now it time to add the slide to the cabinet frame. Because every cabinet will be different I am just going to share tips that helped me.
Something I found very useful because my cabinet frame widths are not straight (the front of the cabinet would be one size and the back another) was wood shims.
Something else I did was place my metal slide about 1/4″ away from the cabinet frame, seen in the picture above. Plus sometimes I did have to move the slide off the bottom of the cabinet frame to help it close even.
A very helpful tool was this small magnetic level because all I had to do was place it on the metal slide and it would stay in place while I moved things around to make it level.
After all the metal slides were added to the cabinet, the drawer can now be put on the slides. The drawer slide passes through the notch in the back of the drawer.
Then push the drawer back into closed position until you hear the locking mechanism click or you can pull the slides toward the front of the drawer. Then pull the drawer open and you’re done!
Here was our kitchen drawers and kitchen before we started remodeling, we did add the dishwasher already…
And here they are today!
What do you think of our updated drawers? Wish you could come over and see how cool they really are. My sister came over the other day and she could not leave them alone, she loved them too. Anyone else need to update their kitchen?
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