DIY Dresser Making 1.

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This past summer, I made two dressers for me and my husband. We have shared one dresser ever since I came to America (I'm from Korea as you can tell from my blog name) because we only lived in studios before we bought a house. Now, we have own our bedroom and don't have to save any space for other stuff. So I decided to have two dressers and make them by myself! How To Build A Dresser From Scratch 1. Planning I started by planning what color I wanted for the dressers, what color door knobs or pulls I wanted, how many drawers I would need, and how big the dresser should be.  Since our room color is a warm-tone white, I wanted the drawers to be a cool-tone white to contrast with the wall. I also wanted the top to be a natural wood color to give a little warmth so it didn't look too cool. Door knob color was easy to pick because all the hardware in our room was gold. So I wanted them to be gold too to match. For the size, I didn't really have a choice because our room has
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DIY Dresser Making 2. Drawers

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In this post, I'm going to share how I built drawers for the dresser, installed the drawer slides, mounted the drawer faces, and installed drawer knobs.

1. How to build drawers

I used 1/2 inch plywood for all the drawers and decided to finish with polyurethane not paint. I needed to build 4 drawers for each dresser, so the total was 8. I planned the top drawer to be smaller so the other 3 could have more space.

(1) Glue and nail the boards

To make a drawer, I needed 5 pieces of plywood which included 1 bottom, 2 sides, 1 front, and 1 back.
I have all the exact sizes for the boards I used in my previous post. So please check out DIY Dresser Making 1. to get an idea what size you would need for your dresser project.
I only used glue and nails(1.5") to assemble the drawer. By the way, butt-joining 1/2 plywood is a little tricky because of the thickness. So I had to make sure I shot the nails exactly in the middle of the 1/2.

To do this, I drew a line 1/4 apart from the edge on the board that I had to nail.

Then I placed the bottom board on the table, applied some glue, and nailed the front board to the bottom board. After that, I did the same with the back board. 

This is what the side looked like after I nailed it to the bottom, front and the back board. It's important to assemble the front and the back boards first before doing the sides. Because we pull the drawers towards us when opening it, the nails connecting the side and front panels need to be facing side to side. If the side boards were attached first, they would have to be connected to the front and back boards with nails facing the direction where we pull the drawers, and the pulling of the drawers over time would weaken the structure.

And here we have one drawer built!

(2) Patch holes with wood filler and apply polyurethane

After building the drawer boxes, I erased the pencil marks and filled the nail holes with wood filler on the side boards because it's visible when you open the drawer. To sand down dried wood filler, I used an orbital sander because it's much easier than using sand paper or a sponge by hand.

That way, all 8 drawers were ready for a polyurethane shower.

I used Behr's fast drying water-based polyurethane which I've always used for most of my woodworking. It's really easy to apply, dries fast just like the name, and the finish is beautiful. I especially love the matte finish. I have never used gloss finish for polyurethane other than regular painting because I wouldn't like the shiny finish on a natural wood color. 

I applied 3 coats of polyurethane inside of the drawers and outside(only for the sides that I patched with wood filler) too and sanded between coats with 400 grits sanding paper.

2. How to install drawer slides

I purchased Everbilt 14 inch side-mount drawer slides from Home Depot. I used to buy drawer slides on Amazon when I first built some cabinets, but realized Everbilt drawer slides worked pretty good and were cheaper. So I always get drawer slides from Home Depot now. 

The first thing to do before installing drawer slides is to disconnect the adjoined slide members. 

I pulled the inner drawer member until the black level was exposed and pulled it again all the way while tapping down the level.  

Then I placed the outer drawer member on the bottom of the dresser for the first slide installation. The height for the slide is totally up to you, but I personally find this way easier to start especially if there are more than 1 drawers to install for one cabinet. 

I made sure that the end of the outer member lined flush with the side board end grain. 

After the outer member was in position, I marked where I wanted to screw through the holes.

Then I pre-drilled and screwed in with the provided screws. I installed the other side the same way too.

After I finished the outer drawer members, I put the inner members back in to attach them to the drawer.

To give a little space for the bottom of the first drawer, I placed some 1/4 inch tile spacers.

Then I dropped the drawer on the top of the spacers.

I pulled out the inner drawer member with the drawer together and did the same process with the outer member. (mark, pre-drill, screw in)
The length of the screws which came with the Everbilt drawer slides are good with either 3/4 plywood or 1/2 plywood. When I purchased drawer slides from Amazon in the past, the screws they provided were too long for 1/2 plywood. But I didn't check that before I installed, just screwed in through the drawers which I made out of 1/2 plywood, and the screws came through inside the drawers. I'm sure not every company provides long screws for drawer slides, but at least I know the screws from the Everbilt drawer slides are safe with 1/2 plywood. 

So this is how I installed the first set of drawer slides and put the drawer in it. By the way, I don't think I mentioned above, but you have to have a 1/2" space for the slides. For example, if the width for the inside of the cabinet is 10", a drawer width should be 9" because most of side-mount drawer slides need 1/2"(It could be different, so always check the specification for the slides you are planning to use before making drawers) and two side slides will have 1" total in the cabinet. 

For the next set of drawer slides, I repeated the same process. However, I had to place some scraps of wood on the top of the bottom drawer, so I could create some space between the drawers and outer drawer member on the top of the wood boards. Then I did the same way as I did for the first drawer slides. 

Once the outer member was done, I put the drawer in it and screwed the inner member to it.  

Finally, all the drawers were able to be in the dresser with those slides!!

3. How to mount drawer faces

I started from the bottom drawer again. I opened the drawer and marked where I wanted to screw(total 6) to mount the face. Even though I was planning to screw inside of the drawer which would not be visible, I wanted the screws to line up looking organized. So I used a ruler and marked them equidistant.

After that, I placed a 1/8" tile spacer on the floor and put the drawer front on the top of them. 

Then I clamped the drawer and front together, pre-drilled where I marked earlier and screwed.

For the screws, I used GRK washer head cabinet screws #8 / 1". 

Once I finished the first one, I moved on to the second one. I placed the same 1/8" tile spacer on the below front and put the second front on the top of them. Then I did the same process for the rest. 

4. How to install drawer knobs

I got the knobs for the dresser instead of handles which I kind of regret now. Because the drawer's width is pretty long, where you can grab with the knobs to open it is limited. So you always have to pull the knobs together to open it. If they were minimum 5" handles, it would be possible to open the drawer even with one handle and really convenient when you only have one hand available. So I would definitely recommend getting handles, not knobs if your drawer is long too :)

Anyway, the knobs I got came with two different length screws- a short one and an adjustable one. The short one was too short for 2 layers of wood boards, so I had to use the adjustable one.

I watched some Youtube videos to figure out how to cut, but I couldn't do it. So I just ended up asking my husband to use aviation snips to cut the screws.

Once all the screws were ready, I marked where I wanted to install the knobs on the drawer faces. There are cabinet hardware mounting jig/templates on the market, but I haven't used them. I just used a square ruler. It would be much faster with those templates, but I'm used to the way I know. 

For cabinet knobs or pulls, it usually requires 3/16" holes. So I used a 3/16" drill bit and drilled through the drawer and the face. 

Then I had all the knobs installed. Again, I don't recommend knobs for wide dressers. That is the only thing I wish I didn't do for my dresser. Other than that, I love how neat they look.

In the next post, I will share how I stained the top board and finished the dressers. 
Until then :)

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