How to Build a Closet System--{Drawers, Cubbies, & Belt/Tie Rack!}

hey guys it's shira from woodshop diaries and today i'm going to show you how i built this closet system so i built this project in two separate pieces the top and the bottom that way it's easier to build and it's also easier to install once it gets where it's going the bottom section is obviously just four large storage doors so it's basically just like a big dresser and the top section has shoe cubbies a long shelf and a pull out tie slash build rack so while this project was fairly simple in design it was still a lot of fun to build so i'm just going to jump right in and if you guys are ready to get building let's go if you've seen many of my videos you know that i love working with plywood this project was built from almost 100 birch plywood except for the poplar dials used in the pullout tie rack this kept things simple quick and as inexpensive as possible while still getting a clean nice looking result so the first thing i did to get started was unload the plywood and start cutting it down i've provided plans and dimensions for this project in the link in the description if you're interested in specifics just in fyi this project was designed to fit into a nook and a friend's house roughly four foot wide two foot deep and eight foot tall to allow for some wiggle room and the potential for unsquare walls i made this 47 inches wide about 20 inches deep and about 7 foot tall any gaps after insulation can be covered with half round cove or some other type of thin molding or trim if desired and the space at the top can just be left over for extra storage i use my circular saw and kreg cutting guides to cut down my plywood sheet like i always do i've got a video about these guides that i'll link below if you're interested and once i had all the pieces broken down into more manageable sizes i began assembling i actually built the pieces of this project in no logical order whatsoever so i'm going to try to organize this video into something that makes a little bit more sense than what i actually did i wanted to start off with the hardest part of the project so that it was done and out of the way and to me the most difficult part was the shoe rack mostly because i assembled it using dowels now there are a lot of ways that i could have done this i could have used dados or i could have used lap joints pocket holes etc but i chose dowels because one this is a shoe rack and it doesn't need to hold like hundreds of pounds too i didn't want to see pocket holes and the spaces were really just too small to use them anyway and three i didn't trust myself to cut this many dados or lap joints with very good accuracy or maintain the patience to do so of course you're welcome to use whatever method you feel most comfortable with but for me it was dallas so i marked and drilled holes on the front and back edges of the vertical dividers for the shoe cubbies then i marked the center of the plywood shelves and drilled holes in these pieces as well i measured marked and drilled out the holes with the intention that each cubby opening was to be eight inches square i used some dap rapid fuse glue to glue these dowels into the vertical panels and then i used wood glue to attach the shelves i glued up one section at a time and let them dry about an hour before moving on to the next section once i had them all glued up it was 12 cubbies total i screwed the outside piece on using wood screws these screws will be hidden once it's installed in the top section of this closet system so i wasn't really worried about them showing i edge banded the shoe cubby pieces before assembling but i ended up sanding most of it off because i got really messy with the glue so i reapplied it again after it was assembled now this was by far the most stressful part of the project but once the shoe cubbies were together i took a break from the hard stuff set the cubbies aside and moved on to my favorite thing of all drawers don't worry i will come back to the shoe cubby later so the bottom half of this closet system was basically a large plain dresser so first i built the dresser carcass this was really just a large box i edged into the front sides of the plywood pieces and assembled using wood glue and pocket hole screws i attached the bottom panel of this cabinet about three inches up from the bottom of the sides so that i could cut and install a toe kick later i used a scrap block here just to keep my spacing consistent at the bottom of the panel now since this was going into a nook and the sides wouldn't be seen i kept it really simple by just attaching the top so that the edges were flush to the sides if this was going to be exposed on the sides i may have opted for mitering the corners like i did on my dresser disk last year just to give the corners a more seamless look either way would work fine but this is a little cleaner faster and stronger i used some clamps here to hold the corner square while the glue dried then i moved it to the floor to add the bracing this cabinet will need to be secured to the wall behind it once it's in place so i added some scrap pieces across the back at the top and the bottom to screw through to attach this piece to the wall studs in the nook at this point i flipped the dresser on its side and installed a toe kick piece about three inches in from the front edge of the cabinet all of these bracing and toe kick pieces were made from just three quarter inch birch plywood then it was time to work on the drawers i laid the cabinet on its side and installed four 16-inch drawer slides so that they were three-quarter inch inset to allow for inset drawer fronts [Music] then i flipped it over and installed four more to give me four pair total if you've ever wondered how to install drawer slides i will link a detailed guide in the description that you may find helpful after the slides were in it was time to build the drawers i drug out another sheet of plywood and began ripping strips down to cut the drawer box pieces from i build a lot of drawers so if you've seen almost any of my other videos this process probably looks familiar i trimmed the strips to length and began cutting dados along the drawer box pieces to install the quarter inch plywood bottom panel you can use a dado blade for this but i prefer to just set my blade height to a quarter inch high adjust my rip fence to cut the dado about a half inch from the bottom edge make a pass and then adjust the rip vents closer to the blade and make one to two more passes until the dado is about a quarter of an inch wide once these daddles were cut i cut quarter inch plywood panels to fit inside for the door bottoms and assembled the door boxes using pocket holes and screws these drawers were pretty wide but since they were only about 16 inches deep the quarter inch plywoods seemed to hold fine without a lot of room for give however if you wanted since they are larger than normal you could use half inch plywood instead i feel like that would be a little overkill for a few sweaters and some jeans in a closet but to each their own once the four boxes were assembled i began installing them into the dresser cabinet for a detailed guide on building and installing drawers and slides i will link a helpful tutorial below but i use some spacer blocks to space out the drawer boxes and screw the slides onto them since these are such large doors it's important to get several screws in the slides to help with both the weight and the alignment i use four screws per side of each slide now i didn't show it here but i had to remove each drawer from the main slide attached to the cabinet to insert the screws in the back hole but again all of that is detailed in the link that i will leave below once all four drawers were installed i cut drawer fronts from 3 4 inch plywood and edge banded them then i installed them onto each door box using wood screws from the inside there are a lot of tricks to lining up door fronts but honestly i just eyeballed it to see that the gaps looked even [Music] i began at the top and worked my way down and once i got the last front installed the bottom section was complete now actually i did go back and add a quarter inch plywood back panel onto the back side of this cabinet later but for now it was time to just move on to the top section of this project and get it knocked out just like the bottom the top was basically a large plywood box in this case i cut the pieces a few inches narrower than the bottom section the bottom was about 20 inches deep but i made this top section about 16 inches deep to keep things extra simple i simply glued and screwed these pieces together like shown here you'll notice that i took time to edgeman the front edges of the plywood but i forgot to wrap it around to the sides on the top and bottom pieces so i did have to come back and add that after the fact once the main top cabinet was together i grabbed the shoe cubby piece from the beginning of the video and placed it inside for no particular reason other than just for looks you'll notice that i did make the shoe cubby cabinet about an inch narrower than the overall top cabinet i honestly just felt like doing that so i did i have no logical reason for it whatsoever i carefully measured clamped and screwed this piece in place keeping all the cubbies perfectly square and flush to the back side [Music] again since this is going into a nook none of these screws will be seen once it's installed then i added a shelf on the top of the cubbies the main thing here was making sure to keep the opening on the left square and the shelf level side to side i just used wood screws again here now you'll be able to see the screws on the top of the shelf but since this is going to be about seven foot high and covered with clothes i wasn't really concerned i puttied and sanded over all of the screw holes but if you are concerned with what it looks like you could opt for dados here instead of using screws or simply plug the screw holes with a wood plug i was eager to see what it all looked like together so i placed this section on top of the dresser to get a good idea then i cut a back panel from a sheet of quarter inch plywood to fit over the back of both the top and the bottom sections and simply stapled them in place so two things i forgot to put a strip at the top of the top section um before i put the back on i need that strip so that when we get it into the nook that it's going into we can screw it and attach it like secure it to the wall so i'm gonna have to add a strip at the top and i didn't really want to take the back off so i'm just going to screw it in you'll see that just a second the bottom section the cabinet itself overall is square but the two sides of the cabinet i guess since it's so big and there's so much of weight and ability to move in there the sides are bowing in just a little bit i'm going to add a strip actually it's going to be this strip i'm going to add it between two of the drawers in the middle of that cabinet just to kind of push those sides out and keep it straight all the way down um i didn't really think that that would be necessary until i kind of got everything together and i saw that there's a just there's enough give in there that i think it needs a little spacer block so we're going gonna add that with pocket holes just because it's going inside the cabinet and it's basically just this squeeze squeeze it'd be the opposite of squeeze push the sides out [Music] it's always when you get almost to the end of the project and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel that you forget things or you notice things that you hadn't realized before luckily these were minor things and i fixed the bowing panels by adding a scrap wood brace in the middle of the [Music] cabinet and i could attach this back brace through the top and sides without having to remove the already installed back panel not ideal but again it's going into a nook and you'll never see the screws now at this point i puttied all of the screw holes sanded and applied a couple of coats of clear coat then i added the final piece the tie rack the friend i was building this for has a lot of ties and he wanted somewhere to hang them and tuck them away so i rummaged around in my scrap pile to find some pieces that i could cut down to build a small box instead of adding a top panel here i cut three pieces from a dowel rod to screw into the box to use as rex i carefully measured each side of each dowel to make sure that they were installed square and level and then i screwed them in from the sides of the box once this was built i installed slides into the large left cubby on the top cabinet one at the top and one at the bottom then i installed the tie rack box onto these sleds i was pleasantly surprised that this worked as well as it did and all it needed now was a front i cut to fit a plywood front edge banded it and screwed it on from the inside [Music] after a little poly and a handle it was ready to put together and take some photos before sending it to my friend's house to be installed [Music] broken down into sections this project really wasn't difficult though it is rather large this could easily be modified added onto or doubled up on to add to a nook a closet laundry room or just any space that you might need some additional cabinetry or storage to install it you'd simply attach the cabinets to the back wall through the back braces into the studs and then i'd probably use a few screws through the underside of the dresser top to secure the top cabinet to the bottom cabinet so they'll be attached as basically one big unit now honestly with this natural birch finish the wood putty is almost unnoticeable on the sides where i covered the screws however if this wasn't going into nook and you didn't want to see the putty adding a veneer over the entire side or using wood plugs or a quote unquote end cap board or some trim pieces are an easy way to cover the screws add a decorative touch and give you a seamless finish if you want to build one for yourself don't forget to grab the dimensions and plans in the link below and if you've enjoyed this video be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on what's coming next thanks so much for watching friends and until next time happy building

Channel: Shara Woodshop Diaries

Views: 265,110

Keywords: closet organization diy, built in closet organization diy, how to build built in closet cabinets, DIY closet cabinets, diy closet system with drawers, diy closet system with shoe cubbies, diy closet system with shoe storage, how to build a closet system, how to build a closet cabinet, diy clothes storage without closet, diy clothes storage cabinet, diy clothes cabinet, how to make diy clothes cabinet, diy built in closet cabinet, diy closet organization with shelving and drawers

Id: SiUIMJ4a4C8

Length: 16min 45sec (1005 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 10 2021