DIY Fitted Wardrobe Build with Basic Tools - Video #1 : PLINTH & CARCASSES

hello and welcome to the first in a series of weekly videos charting the construction of my bespoke wall-to-wall bedroom wardrobe system [Applause] now i've got to confess most of this project is still very much up here in my head but i'm hoping to build something like this that i saw a couple of years back in my day job at a customer's house putting a project like this together can be as intimidating as it's exciting but it's well worth doing because you'll end up saving yourself a fortune in the long run and i hope you'll see after this series of videos that you really can achieve something pretty impressive with everyday diy tools and as usual i'm going to be pointing out each week all the mistakes i've made and believe you me at the end of this first week of the build there have been quite a few of these so let's start by running through the methodology of the build itself first off i'm constructing a plinth out of 25 by 100 millimeter plained redwood for the wardrobe to sit on secondly the wardrobe will be made out of five carcasses plus top boxes above each made out of 18 millimeter moisture resistant mdf and thirdly the doors will be made from a 12 millimeter moisture resistant mdf base piece with 12 millimeter mdf rails and styles pinned and glued to the front rather like these that i made for my last project now freshman carpenters would say this is cheating but i don't have a domino machine or a router table and making the doors this way is incredibly easy to do with everyday diy tools and also incredibly strong with these blum hinges there will also be internal shelves and drawers which i'll talk about in more detail when i get to that part of the build so let's have a quick run-through of the tools and materials that are going to be involved in this project we've got my instant workshop already a complete game changer for keeping all that mdf dust safely outside a link to my recent workshop build video is coming up in screen now for how i made my falling workbench check out the links in the description below this video i've got moisture resistant mdf in 12 and 18 millimeter sheets 25 by 100 millimeter planed redwood for the plinth and 25 by 125 millimeter plain redwood which i'll be ripping down into narrower strips for the front trim of the wardrobe i ordered this wood through buildingmaterials.co.uk partly because the covert situation but also to remove the usual hassle factor in short after my initial email telling them what i needed they did all the leg work for me and organized the supply and delivery of the wood through a local timber merchant they did give me a discount for giving them a shout out on this video but depending on whether you go for standard moisture resistant or premium moisture resistant mdf these are the sort of prices you'll be looking at for the quantities that i ordered for the shelves i ordered this 25 mil thick sheet of birch ply from a local timber merchants which i've got to say at 102 pounds including vat was shockingly expensive i'll be using these blunt concealed hinges for thick doors with die-cast mounting plates that i loved using previously on my daughter's wardrobe doors this time bought through trade hinges dot co dot uk and again these draw runners have previously been fantastic this black version may go better with my dark paint scheme or there's these concealed draw runners from blum but just look at the price i'm going to be installing led strip lighting in the wardrobes activated with these sensors and i'm going to attempt to route an angled groove into the wardrobe ceiling to accommodate the strips a selection of brackets from i'm hungry direct these nickel shelf supports and studs my ryobi and evolution circular saws electric plane and although less crucial my evolution single bevel miter saw a light drill driver and these spacks four by fifty millimeter mdf screws there will obviously be other tools but this is the main component list and i'll keep updating it in each video and of course in the description below each video and at the end of the project i'll give you a full breakdown of all the costs involved before we plough into the plinth build let's have a quick chat about the importance of doing scale drawings at the outset of any wardrobe build to extend this is less important if you're building out a symmetrical rectangular space but in my case in my enthusiasm to maximize the height of the carcasses up to this point here where the sloping ceiling met the wall i hadn't appreciated how much the ceiling slopes from one side of the room to the other so do i follow the line of the ceiling and create asymmetric top boxes or do i make them horizontal and put some sort of filler piece above them now the second option is obviously the most sensible and had i drawn this out at the outset i would have realized it would have left me with 200 millimeters for storage above the wardrobe which just isn't practical programs like sketchup would be a fantastic way to get this project off from the right foot but because i don't know how to use that i've used this freehand designer pad that i used to use to record measures in my day job and i'll post a link to this in the description below the video now to work out what materials i needed i came up with a series of cutting lists for the plinth carcasses doors and internal drawers and shelves these are a bit crude and it has been pointed out to me there are programs out there to help you with this so if there's a particular cutting list programmer you've used ideally free or as a trial version because we're not going to be doing this very often it would be amazing if you could let us know in the comments section below so let's have a chat about the plinth shown here waiting to be screwed together at the end of day one now there's two reasons why i've gone for these plinths rather than say adjustable feet under each carcass number one there's gonna be quite a lot of weight bearing down on this floor when the wardrobe is constructed and having a plinth like this better spreads the weight across the floor number two and more importantly my floor as you'll see in a minute is incredibly uneven and the idea of trying to line up each carcass using adjustable feet is just somewhere i didn't want to go with a perfectly horizontal plinth sliding on and lining up each carcass is going to be child's play i decided to plot the exact position of each carcass and therefore the plinth structure on the floor using masking tape and as the back wall of the wardrobe is uneven i used a taut string line across the room to determine the final position of the front of the wardrobe which i've decided to make 620 millimeters from the back wall giving me a final internal depth for each wardrobe of just under 600 millimeters i knew from earlier on in the renovation project that this bedroom floor was incredibly uneven and with a huge 25 millimeter dip in the center of the room i decided to scribe the plinth to the contours of the floor although you could if you prefer use something like this scribing is a lovely little technique to learn and it's so useful basically using these glazing packers i put a few under one end to get the top of the plinth level and then set my scribe to the widest part of the gap there are scribing tools but i favor the unsophisticated approach and then you simply draw your pencil down the length of the plinth to draw a perfect impression of the uneven floor on the plinth and then it was down to the pop-up workshop in my garden i assembled last week to cut out the subscribed section with my old boss jigsaw jigsaws typically make for a pretty inaccurate cut or my old one does anyway so i always have my vintage block plane and also my electric plane handy to tidy up the cuts afterwards so with the front and back sections of the plinth now scribed and perfectly level i then had the additional headache of getting them level from front to back to remove this thin slither i use my circular saw with its fence a quick tip whenever using a circular saw it's crucially important to set it so that only half a tooth of the blade protrudes below the wood you're cutting any more than that and the saw will wander all over the face with the plinth length now level both across the room and from the front to the back of the wardrobe it was time to cut and insert the cross members that will support the weight of each wardrobe carcass where they butt up to each other i've decided to double up each cross member where the two carcasses meet this was no easy job because i had to cut each one individually to match the height of the plinth at the front and back but the circular saw came to the rescue again this time using one of the track saw guides that i made in the summer i haven't used it since making the video and it worked a dream to make these tricky cuts across each plinth section and after each cut a quick blast with my ryobi leaf blower kept the workbench clear cross members were then slotted into place and in terms of screwing the plinth together after a bit of experimenting i settled on a pattern of piloting each hole with a two and a half millimeter lip and spur wood bit and then using these eight by two inch quick silver twin thread wood screws there is no need to cancel the holes with the wood so soft and then it was on to construction of the carcasses the carcasses themselves are simply five sheets of moisture resistant mdf screwed together the four 18 millimeter thick sides and then a 12 millimeter thick rear the rear panel helps you to get the carcass square but also gives it rigidity when you lift it into place now typically when you make carcasses you're going to want to construct them like this particularly if these are wall mounted carcasses because then you don't see the end grain and it's much stronger than if you were to construct it like this it also makes it easier for you preparing your cut lists because then your top and bottom and all your shelves can be the same width but in my case i'm not going to be seeing the size of the carcasses with the carcass sound the plinth is going to be much stronger if the sides of the carcass are sat on the base particularly if for example a heavy weight was to be put into the wardrobe and if the base was entirely reliant on it screws into the side of the carcass i haven't used moist resistant mdf much in the past but i felt was about time i did as it's pretty much standard on any professional wardrobe build i have a feeling that it'd be less prone to warping which will be helpful when i construct the doors and i'm not planning on painting the sides and the back of my wardrobe which wouldn't be an issue here because i've insulated this wall as part of the renovation but you'd be surprised how many people have told me about problems with mould building up inside wardrobes that butt up against a cold external wall so get these walls insulated and for more tips check out the video coming up on screen now the plan is to hide all the cut edges of the carcasses behind a pine fascia and so i've designed the base to project out to the front of the plinth like this with the sides recessed back the thickness of the fascia i'll then finish the wardrobe with a skirting that will cover the plinth and the cut edge of the carcass base so the key for a diy build like this is to get clean square straight cuts now i fully expected to be using my ryby circular saw for this project but the saw guide that i made for it in the summer check out the link to the video coming up on screen now because i've unfortunately become a bit warped because of the way it's been stored in my garage over the winter basically got two millimeter deviation in the middle so i've instead had to revert to my hybrid circular saw with admittedly pretty satisfying results well i've got to be honest the big downside of this saw even over my ryobi which has quite a good dust collection is that the additional extraction duct is obviously designed for suction extraction only as it blocked up immediately with my improvised extraction bag cutting a lot of mdf is a pretty unpleasant process so you need a mask and also some kind of blower i don't know what i do without my ryobi now i call this a hybrid because it's a circular saw that runs on a track and you normally just see that with plunge saws the saw came with two 700 millimeter tracks that are bolted together for the cross cuts and i purchased these two 1400 millimeter tracks to bolt together to rip down full sheets of mdf using tracks like this is so much easier and more accurate than simply pushing your circular saw against a straight edge and the beauty of these tracks is they fit my axe mits to clamps as well as obviously the clamps that come supplied with the kit a sheet of 18mm mdf is heavy and after lugging the first sheet down into my workshop for all subsequent sheets i used this little caster wheel i made a couple of years ago to cart my workbench around i realised the track saw guide is a far superior straight edge to the one i was using and notice the use of the sacrificial protective strips underneath the cutting surface although stupidly on a few occasions i forgot to reduce the height of the blade when switching from 18 to 12 millimeter mdf cuts so with the pieces for the first few carcasses cut to size it was just a question of fixing them together in the room itself this being infinitely easier than carrying them in from outside to screw the carcasses together i'm using these brilliant spaxx four by fifty millimeter mdf screws that i recently discovered no pre-drilling necessary or bulging in the mdf although i have been piloting the initial hole just to make my life a bit easier to get around the problem of the chimney projecting out of the wall i'll need to angle the three carcasses affected like i did here which i fine-tuned with my electric plane although i could have made the angled cut with my circular saw with the first three carcasses in position that was the end of week one so that's it for week one not as much progress as i would have liked but i had all that head scratching at the start to work out the wardrobe dimensions and then the tricky plinth to construct so that is why projects like this always get off to a bit of a sluggish start and then of course i've got to reduce the height of these carcasses by 100 millimeters to accommodate the top boxes but hopefully you're tuning next week by which time with any luck i will have finished the carcasses and the top boxes and routed the grooves for all of the lighting and before you go as i always say if you're new to my channel it would mean so much to me to have you subscribe you can do that by clicking on the link here and don't forget to click the bell notification icon so you get notified of all my future uploads see you soon

Channel: Charlie DIYte

Views: 275,431

Rating: 4.9401021 out of 5

Keywords: fitted wardrobe, charlie diyte, fitted wardrobe installation, fitted bedroom wardrobes, built-in wardrobes diy

Id: R1dKybdYyY8

Length: 13min 25sec (805 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021