Our garage has a largish cabinet at the back with five cupboard doors and a plywood top which has been pretty handy both for storage and a work surface. However it has always been difficult to access things through the narrow doors in the dark interior; that's been a minor thorn in my side for some time that I finally took steps to extract.
I decided that drawers were the way to go to avoid the crouch-on-the-floor-and-peer-into-the-dark-interior action of the previous 20 years. With the main choices of material being melamine or plywood, I opted for plywood to lessen the possibility of damage should it be exposed to moisture. The new cabinet is similar in size to the old one and uses 18mm birch plywood for both the cabinet and drawers. I left the edge laminations on the plywood exposed since after all, it's just for the garage.
While the old cabinet was one big empty box (creatively built with pegboard, dimensional lumber and plywood), the construction of the new version is similar to what you might find in any kitchen; three independent cabinets attached together, each with three drawers. The assembly is topped with laminate and all the drawers have full extension soft-close slides. No doubt everyone reading this will now want to build their own, so I have helpfully provided some details on the construction
here.
| Material: | 18mm Birch plywood, laminate countertop |
| Finish: | 3 coats Miniwax Fast-Dry Poly, Clear Satin |
| Size: | 81" wide x 25.5" deep x 38.5" tall (including top) |
| Done: | January 1, 2019 |
