How to Build a Mid Century Dresser with Stenciled Doors

hey guys it's shira from one top diaries and today i'm gonna bring you a part three of the matching mid-century modern furniture series now if you've been following along you know that i've been building bedroom furniture for this series and i actually already built a dresser and two matching nightstands but because i love building dressers i decided to build a second one this time one with doors i've partnered with my friends at cricut to add this modern design to the doors to give it even more of a mid-century vibe later in this video i'll show you how i use my cricut joy machine to cut a template that's larger than it's technically capable of cutting to add this design in the next video i'll be wrapping up this series with the bed so if you want to check that out be sure to subscribe and follow along so you don't miss it but for now if you're ready to get building let's go if you want all the specifics i've got the complete plans for this build with dimensions and details linked in the description below now i mentioned in my last video that i normally prefer using birch plywood for my projects but my store was out when i picked up the wood for the nightstands so i went with maple instead since this is a matching set and the nightstands were maple i decided to stick with maple for this dresser build as well i used two full sheets of three quarter inch plywood to complete this build plus two two by fours and some scrap poplar to cut the legs from and also some quarter inch plywood to use for the drawer bottoms and the back panels i started by cutting down my plywood sheets i used my circular saw and correct grip cut to cut down two 18 inch wide strips of plywood for more information on cutting down plywood sheets i will link a helpful video below once these strips are ripped i brought them over to the miter saw to cut to length now you could cut these to length using a circular saw instead but i just used the miter saw because i thought it was a little quicker i cut as far as i could one way then flip the sheet over and finish the cut from these two strips i cut a top and a bottom plus two sides for the dresser cabinet now just like the last dresser and the nightstands i wanted the inside of the dresser to be one inch inset from the front edge of the main cabinet this is purely for design and i just like the extra dimension that it added so i ripped two strips from the second plywood sheet to 17 inches wide and used these to cut the two divider panels i set the rest of these strips to the side to use later once i had the top and bottom the sides and the divider panels cut down i applied iron on edge banding to the edges that will be exposed in the finished project edge banding is always optional but i just think that it looks a little bit cleaner so i like to use it i'll link a guide to applying it in the description below if you'd like to know more about it once they were edge banded i began drilling the pocket holes to assemble the main cabinet now obviously you can assemble this cabinet with whatever joinery method that you prefer but i'm using pocket holes in this case in the process of preparing the pieces for assembly i actually changed my original design and instead of having three drawers in the middle section of this dresser i decided to have two drawers and an open shelf at the top i was planning on the metal dividers of the dresser keeping my pocket holes on the drawer side because with the drawers in place like you'll never see the pocket holes however since i'm going to leave that top section in the middle open you'll see those pocket holes if i face them towards that way so i'm going to put the bottom of the divider pocket holes on the drawer side and the top pocket holes on the cabinet side normally i'd put all the pocket holes on the same side of the board but in this case we're gonna go opposite so just wanted to clarify that why i'm doing it the way that i'm doing it once the pocket holes were drilled i assembled the dresser cabinet using wood glue and pocket hole screws i made sure to keep the dividers inset from the front edge one inch and the middle section centered i used some scrap blocks to help me install the open shelf between the dividers and after the main cabinet was together it was time to add some design details if you remember on the nightstands i made an entire box inside of a box to get the one inch inset look however since this is much larger it would be a significant amount of extra plywood to build an entire box inside here so to fake it i added some thin scrap strips where i could get away with it and then just added a solid bottom panel in the cabinet sections because it did make sense to keep those smooth all the way across i simply glued these pieces in place keeping them in set from the front edge one inch and used pocket holes and screws to install a drawer divider piece to evenly space out this drawer section now i debated on how i wanted to stencil the design on the doors and if i wanted to continue that design onto the drawers as well so i cut my doors to size first again all the dimensions for this project can be found in the plans linked below and i added the design to these doors first to see how things looked so i did a practice door to make sure that this was gonna work out okay it turned out really good i'm really happy with it the only thing is that there was a little bit of bleed through on the lines i'm going to try to sand the second door a little bit finer grit so hopefully the surface is a little bit smoother to hopefully help with that bleed through now i did this with a cricut joy machine and some vinyl typically the qriket joy machine is for cutting small things and not really for big stuff but if you're creative enough you can get away with making big things on a small machine so let me show you how you can do this with a cricket joy this is cricut design space so this is where you design your templates and your stencils or whatever you want to cut out on your machine they've got templates that you can pick from here you can also add text here shapes you can design this however you want but if you drew something or you have an image from somewhere else that you want to upload which is what i did you can go to this upload choose your image and then here's where you can erase so i can erase these background and then i can erase all of the gray area i want to erase and then there's my image and i want to cut this image and insert it into my design space so you can size this to fit your door whatever size that you need now once you get this to the size that you want obviously you can't cut it out in one piece on the cricut joy because it will only cut out four and a half inch wide sections at a time so what you do is you click shapes make a square and then you go up here and you size this square to 4.49 inches high and then however wide you want it to be like so we'll say 20 inches so now i can take this square and set it over my shape and then select both of these and go down here to where it says slice now it will slice this section off and i don't need these and then repeat and you can line all of these pieces up as you need them so i've got mine right here now i can make it and because i'm doing two of these one for the top and one for the bottom i want to print out two copies so project copies two and i'm going to be cutting out vinyl i loaded my qriket smart vinyl into my cricut joy machine and let it cut everything out once it was finished cutting i used some scissors to cut my sections apart so i should have six total pieces three for the top u-shape and three for the bottom i removed all the parts from the stencils that i planned to stain then used some transfer tape to allow me to transfer this vinyl to the door before applying anything i sanded the door with 400 grit sandpaper to get a smooth surface to start with and then i laid out my shapes and tried to figure out the best way to space everything out i wanted my u-shapes to overlap in the center of the door so i marked where to start and began applying my stencil i simply removed the backer off the vinyl and carefully stuck this in place i found it easiest to do the two middle pieces first then work my way down [Music] this design is pretty forgiving so if the lines get a little off on the pieces i just use this little picker tool to lift the edge and reposition it i'll link the tools that i used here in the description below once the stencil was in place i used a utility knife to cut away a few of the pieces that i didn't want to keep then i ran my fingers along everything just to make sure that it was stuck down nice and flat to prevent any more bleed through and then i used painters tape to create an even outline along the sides so i'm gonna try to stain this by just barely putting any stain on the rag and just like carefully wiping up and not side to side i let this stain dry a few minutes then remove the stencil and the tape there was still a little bleed through but i sanded the surface with 400 grit sandpaper again and it helped blend everything in clearly i was excited about this result i love that after seeing how the doors looked i decided to keep the drawers plain and moved on to building them i set the doors aside for now as i was waiting on the hinges to come in the mail if you've seen many of my past videos you know that i built a lot of drawers so you probably know the drill i installed two pair of 16 inch ball bearing door slides into the cabinet keeping them flush to the front edge of the dividers so that i can install overlay drawer fronts later from the remaining three-quarter inch plywood i cut down pieces for the two drawer boxes and cut dados in them to insert the quarter inch plywood bottoms i edge banded these pieces and assembled using pocket holes and screws then i installed them into the cabinet i know that was fast but if you need more details on how to measure for build and install drawer boxes i will link a drawer building guide below and i've got all the details and the plans linked below as well once the drawers were in i used a correct shelf pin jig to drill shelf pin holes into the cabinet sections to install adjustable shelves later then i removed the drawer boxes from the slides to reduce the weight and move this dresser box off to the floor to build the base now i have used this leg design several times before so this probably looks familiar i traced the template out on a scrap piece of poplar and cut out one leg once it was sanded down to shape i traced it out and cut three more just like it now you could cut these from scrap plywood one by material or even two by material if you wanted them thicker i just had some poplar handy so i used that for this i set these aside for now and built the base frame using two by fours so two by fours typically come with rounded edges and to make the joints a little cleaner here i trim these rounded edges off of the two by fours before assembling them this isn't necessary it just makes it look a little bit cleaner i used simple pocket holes and screws to assemble this frame slightly smaller than the overall size of the dresser bottom once this frame was assembled i grabbed those legs and installed them on each corner i used wood glue and screws to install each leg at each corner and use the square to help me position them at a 45 degree angle i found it easiest to pre-drill a hole into the leg apply some glue then drive the screw through the pre-drilled hole once it was secured in place i added a second screw for some extra hold then i flipped the dresser upside down and glued and screwed this base onto the bottom side of the dresser [Music] once we got it back right side up i reinstalled the drawers cut the drawer fronts and installed those onto the drawer boxes [Music] now i will note here that these drawer fronts much like the drawer fronts on the other dresser don't follow the quote-unquote typical spacing rules as a design element i left a larger reveal along the edges to show off the quote-unquote fake inset box now normally i would want to cover all but about an eighth of an inch of the edge but in this case i used some half inch and quarter inch plywood to help me with the spacing on the drawer fronts i was still waiting on the hinges for the doors in order to install them so i went ahead and just applied a few coats of clear poly to the dresser and drawers once that was dry i used my kreg concealed hinge jig to drill cup holes to install the hinges i left the back of the dresser open until this point to make installing the doors a little bit easier these doors are inset but since they are three-quarter inches thick and the inset is actually a full inch i figured it might be easier to install them by setting them in place and crawling in the back side to screw the hinges in with the doors in place the last thing to do was staple the back panels in place and add the shelves i opted to leave this top middle section open on this dresser to match the open shelf on the nightstands so i only added a back panel over the cabinet sections then i installed shelf pins and added the shelves into each side cabinet i'm seriously so happy with how this turned out the last midcentury modern dresser i made was for a friend but i'm not sure i'm going to give this one up i love how the design on the door pulls in a more mid-century vibe and the cabinets provide plenty of storage you can use this as a dresser a console table in a dining room or even as a tv stand if you've enjoyed this build be sure to head to the link in the description to grab the plans and if you can't wait to see the next build in the series be sure to hit that subscribe button to follow along thanks so much for watching friends and until next time happy building

Channel: Shara Woodshop Diaries

Views: 84,524

Keywords: mid century modern diy, modern dresser diy, diy plywood dresser, stenciled wood furniture, cricut joy DIY projects, diy console cabinet, diy console cabinet plans, mid century modern furniture plans, mid century modern furniture, mid century modern dresser, diy tv stand, diy tv stand out of plywood, mid century dresser, diy mid century modern dresser, how to stencil stain wood, DIY dresser with doors, stenciled furniture, how to build a dresser, diy dresser

Id: uGn8nhy8Wbw

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 28 2021