The Cabinets

So, as you can see below, my garage is a mess and in need of organization. One of the first things I did was to build 6 cabinets to get stuff up off the floor. This was a big project without a proper work space. Depending on good weather to coincide with my time off was a challenge. I will say that I over built some parts but I did not want these cabinets to ever fail. I used 3/4 inch plywood to make sure they were sturdy.

Yes, what a mess.

I used my Paulk work bench and cross cut jig to break down the plywood into the tops/bottoms and sides. I wanted to maximize the size of the inside of the cabinet while making efficient us of the plywood. I cross cut the sheet of ply to 30 1/4" for the tops and bottoms. The interior width of the cabinets is 30 inches. Each end fits into a 1/8" rabbet in the sides. The ply was then ripped to a width of 11 7/8". I added 3/4 poplar edge banding giving me just shy of 12 and 3/4" for the interior depth. I was able to get all 12 tops/bottoms out of one sheet of plywood. I cut the sides also using the Paulk bench and cross cut jig.

The tops/bottoms and sides waiting for some edge banding.

I marked one top/bottom and side for the location of pocket screws and biscuits. I then used that piece as a story stick to transfer the marks to all of the other pieces. This is one place I may have over built - using pocket screws and biscuits to attach edge banding.  Glue and a brad nailer would have been sufficient and would have been A LOT FASTER. However, I was not sure if the glue bond would be good enough without using clamps and I do not have near enough clamps to have done this. So, pockets screws served as my clamps.

I used my table saw and fence to help cut the biscuit slots. I used the biscuits to keep the edge banding aligned while I screwed in the pocket screws.

I trimmed the edge banding flush with each piece using the Paulk cross cut jig before I plugged the  pocket holes.

The pocket holes were filled with the plugs.

 Ok, so I had a very LARGE number of plugs to trim and I was not going to use a saw to cut them nor was I going to sand them all down. That would have been a real pain.

 So I built a flush trim router jig out of some 1/2" plywood

The bottom of the bit is just shy of being flush with the bottom of the jig.

 The plugs are sanded after being trimmed with the jig. The jig saved me SO much time.

I used my Dado stack and a sacrificial fence to cut the rabbets in the top and bottom edges of the sides. The rabbet is 1/8" deep.

I used a Kreg shelf pin jig to drill the pin holes. With 12 sides and only one jig, it took a while.

I drilled pocket holes on the outside of the cabinets as they will not be visible. I drilled them in the top and bottom edges as well as the back edge for the bottom pieces.  I only drilled them on the back edge of the side pieces.

I put sides of the cabinets together while sitting on the back pieces. The back are 3/4 plywood and slightly oversized.

I used squaring jigs that clamp on the inside of the corners. I also measured the diagonals to confirm the squareness of the cabinets.

You can see the back piece is proud of the sides/top/bottom. I used a flush cutting bit in my router to trim them to size. 

Here are the 6 cabinets stacked - waiting for the French cleat to be added.

I started to hang the cabinets by putting the French cleat on the wall. The cleat goes all the way to the corner but the cabinet will not go into the corner. I will hang 5 cabinets along the back wall and one cabinet on the right hand wall. I mounted the first cabinet and double checked for level. I used 2 stainless screws per stud. Had to make sure they were long enough to go through the 3/4" ply and 3/4" drywall and get enough purchase into the stud - 2 1/2" screws did the job.

I hung the second cabinet. I put another strip of ply on the wall to tip the bottom of the cabinets out and make them hang perpendicular. I had the make some adjustments to the left side of where the 3rd cabinet will hang. Seems the guys that built our house could not build a flat wall. There is a SIGNIFICANT hump in the wall at this location. Shims were used the make cleat level. 

The third cabinet is now up on the wall.

I had to use a lot of shims to make the cleat level for the last 2 cabinets.

Finally I have 5 on the wall. Once all of them were hung I put a second 1" wide strip of ply directly underneath the cabinets - drilled into the bottom strip - works like a ledger board. Just extra added support as I will be putting a lot in these cabinets

I loaded them up with a lot of stuff to clear up the floor space. You can see the 6th cabinet on the right. The shelves are 30 inches wide and may have significant weight on them. I cut a piece of poplar edge banding wider than the width of the shelves. I then cut a 3/4"wide and 1/4" deep rabbet for the shelf to fit into. This will greatly decrease the potential for the shelf to sag. 

The "Shoe Rack"........

I call it the shoe rack because I hope it helps to keep the bazillion pairs of my kids shoes from collecting in front of the door going from the garage into the house. It's really just more storage area....and a good place to put shoes. It utilizes the French Cleat wall I perviously built

I used pocket screws and biscuits to attache the sides to the back. Working with 8 foot sections proved to be a bit of a pain as the plywood warped enough to cause issues.

I drilled the holes for the adjustable shelves before fixing the sides to the back.

These Kreg Clamps help a lot when trying to put these together. If you are going to use pocket holes, I'd highly recommending getting at least one of these, two is better.

The sides were glued and screwed and the biscuits were more for helping with alignment. I have trouble keeping things aligned when I use pocket holes so I use biscuits or a shallow dado/rabbet.

Just using screws did not pull everything together so I had to use clamps.

After the glue had dried, it was time to put the top and bottom pieces in place. Well, I found out the the sides were not square to the back and the top edge (as pictured above) bowed in in the middle of the cabinet) So instead of having maybe one fixed shelf in the middle, I had to put in 3 fixed shelves to keep the sides spread to the proper width. These were just glued into place as they will never be supporting a significant amount of weight. I also used 1/4 inch poplar for the edge banding. I used a scrap of the ply to set the spicing between the table saw blade and the fence. I glued and nailed the trim in place.

This side faces out to the garage so I wanted to have some decorative aspect. I used 1/4 inch poplar, 1 1/2 inches wide  to do this.

The cabinet is 8 feet tall and the inside width is 9 inches and about 10 1/2 deep.

The decorative moulding on the left side over laps the edge banning, making it look wider.

Just a different view

I had to custom cut each piece of edge banding for the fixed shelves to make sure the fit properly. I then gulled and nailed and clamped them in place.

I added some cross pieces of moulding at the level of each fixed shelf. I may go back and slightly round the inside edges over with my trim router. Not sure if I will do this or not.

These are the screws I used to drill the French Cleat to the top of the cabinet - stainless steel should be used. Never dry wall screws in this type of situation. They do not have the sheer strength of stainless and could fail.

The cleat was glued and clamped and then screwed in place.

Here it is mounted on my "French Cleat" wall system. I only have the one cleat at the top of the cabinet. I used the same stainless screws to fixe the cleats to the studs in the wall. The opening is on the right side. I just need to make a few adjustable shelves, paint it to finish up. Now to figure out what else I need to put on this wall.