The Historic District

My wife went on a spending spree to outfit a rec room bathroom we're retro-vating with place holders. One of these placeholders is a newly manufactured 3-drawer base cabinet. After I unloaded it and took it into the house I noted something looked "off" about it.

The most obvious strangeness was that the drawers ended about 5" short of the back of the cabinet; about 1" short of the drawer slides. That's 3 drawers x 4" (keeping a space of 1"/drawer) = 12" of storage depth going to waste.

Looking at the interior from the open back, to see if there was something about the drawer slides that would prevent making the drawers longer (while allowing them to be tipped upward slightly for removal), I noted the drawers had been constructed as if they were for a full overlay cabinet but had been put into a full inset cabinet!

This means the drawer inset face panels are 7" tall x 10" wide but the drawers (boxes) are only 3" tall x 9" wide (the width being fine). I suppose 3" high drawer sides is fine if one is storing taller items but anything stacked, like wash cloths, are bound to end up in the drawer below it or on the floor behind the lowest drawer (to be found in some future time when the cabinet is replaced).

Rhetorical Question: Is this typical of some new cabinets manufacturers?

I pointed these things out to my wife and we agreed that, when I have some spare time, the following modifications will be made:

1) lower the drawer slides so that the bottom of the drawer is only about 1/2" above the drawer opening (instead of 1-1/2")
2) add material (in rear) to lengthen and (bottom) heighten the drawers while still allowing for removal,
3) add a sheet of luan (or similar) between each drawer so that contents don't fall,
4) re-position the inset drawer front panels onto the larger, re-built drawer (boxes).

Anywho. I just thought I'd share this in case any of you go shopping for cabinets and might not otherwise notice something, perhaps, to avoid.

Hmm, have you contacted the cabinet manufacturer to verify that this is the way they are normally made ? It sounds like a load of tinkering to make it be serviceable, which is the least you should be able to expect from a new ready-made cabinet ?

This sounds very much like a by-product of standardization of parts and construction tooling to me. I would bet all of the drawer carcasses are identical across all cabinets across the range, no matter how the cabinets vary.

Here's a neat trick. You can make boxes the same with and height of the drawers and attach them to the back of the drawers. Now you can access them by pulling the drawer out further, but most people won't do that or even know they exist so they will stay out of your secret compartments, and you can have one on each drawer. Guests may open your drawers but unless they pull them out far enough , which they are unlikely to, you have some secret space that is really easy to access. its a drawer behind a drawer basically.

Phil

Willa wrote:Hmm, have you contacted the cabinet manufacturer to verify that this is the way they are normally made ? It sounds like a load of tinkering to make it be serviceable, which is the least you should be able to expect from a new ready-made cabinet ?

The cabinet came to us from the ReStore. When we had reason to go to a Consumers Warehouse Center (from where the cabinet originally came) we saw many of their cabinets are the same way. Must be a standarization thing with that cabinet's manufacturer.

Mick_VT wrote:This sounds very much like a by-product of standardization of parts and construction tooling to me. I would bet all of the drawer carcasses are identical across all cabinets across the range, no matter how the cabinets vary.

I think you're absolutely correct [see my previous reply post].

Was this cabinet made for a bathroom and perhaps room was left for plumbing?