Building Inset Cabinet Drawers

The top drawer of this desk is inset with a frame notice it is surrounded on all sides by a frame.

Building inset cabinet drawers.

Inset drawers fit inside the drawer opening as you can see on my diy daybed with storage drawers. There are a couple reasons that inset drawer fronts can be intimidating. Inset drawers are more difficult because of the precision required to get perfect lines around the drawer front. But there are two main options to choose from.

Inset drawers give a modern clean look to your furniture projects while speaking volumes about your craftsmanship. But the reveals the gaps around the drawers tend to highlight minor alignment discrepancies. The bottom drawers are inset without a frame notice that the cabinet does have a face frame but the individual drawers are not individually framed. Build the cabinets buy the doors.

Notice the drawers are inset because they set inside the front of the cabinet. The fronts of overlay drawers overlap the cabinet face frame to hide those misalignments. One of the aspects of building a dresser that many woodworkers find intimidating is to build inset drawer fronts which can be a distinctive accent to a dresser or cabinet project. The last step in how to make drawers is adding false drawer fronts to the boxes.

For the sake of showing you how to build a simple cabinet drawer we ll be talking about attaching an overlay drawer front. Installing inset drawers on faceframe cabinets the easiest way to measure how thick your cleats fillers blocks need to be is to use a ruler or combination square. Building kitchen cabinet doors is doable but can be tricky. Unless you have unlimited free time consider building your cabinets but buying your doors.

Learn how to get perfect inset drawer fronts on your woodworking projects. And if you have a bunch to build you ll need a lot of clamps and even more space. Building a dresser is a great project to take on with lots of skills to master. Learn how to make and install inset cabinet doors and drawers.

Btw if you don t have a combination square get one. This tip works great for wood cabinets dressers nightstands tables and anything. When you open it the vacuum sucks all other drawers inward. This will vary widely depending upon what type of design and construction you use.

In this article i ll describe how to fit inset drawers where the entire drawer including its front is enclosed by the cabinet. Read this post to understand more about choosing inset or overlay doors.