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I'm looking to make pull-out drawers for my pantry. The cabinets are really old and I'm fairly new to this type of endeavor but am up for task. Catch is we have a baby due in 10 weeks and I have a very long to-do list of other things, so the pull out drawers need to be as idiot proof and easy as possible. So far nothing pre-made will fit to the pantry and I don't want to sacrifice (much) pantry space.
The cabinets are old and have two metal brakets on either side to support the shelves. For this reason, I'm thinking that undermount drawers will be the best fit here. However, I've never used those before and will the metal brackets get in the way of the L-bracket needed for the undermount or can they go anywhere along the vertical wall?
Anyone have any advice on what's best here? Or have an idiot proof tutorial for making drawers/installing drawers with undermount slides? I don't need anything fancy- just going for practical.
I am currently designing our kitchen and part of the design includes 2 tall (but norrow) pull-out pantries. Given our kitchen size this is the most efficient use of space for us.
I am not a carpenter though so I would like to ask some feedback / advice on my design - specifically relating to
the material choices (whether or not it will be able to hold the weight)
ease of use (will we be able to actually open the pantries easily)
The material choices
For the shell / carcass of the pantries I am thinking of using 16mm plywood. I am not sure though if this will be strong enough to hold the weight of the pantry drawer and all the food / whatever else we decide to put in there.
For the drawer I am currently planning on using 50mm x 5mm aluminium angle- and T-Bars. 5mm x 50mm flat bars will be used to mount the slides.
For the drawer slides - I am thinking of using 6 x 32" Accuride slides (model no DZ9301E)
Ease of use
Using Fusion 360's physical material properties - it estimates the weight of the drawer around 90kg (with no load). I have no experience with the DZ9301E slides so I have no idea how smoothly they open. I am a bit worried that the drawer will feel very heavy to open and close. Changing the material to steel increases the drawer weight to 260kg.
The design can be seen here (I have included a render of the kitchen to give a better idea of scale). The units in the first image is in cm.
https://imgur.com/a/guSDI4s
Our pantry had fixed shelves that made the rear half tough to use effectively. So, with some undermount Blum’s I made some full extension, pull-outs. Drawers are made from hard maple, found some random birds-eye at my local big box store and scooped it up, and the bottoms are just off the shelf plywood.
I was nervous as this was my first time making drawers or installing drawer hardware, and I’m happy to say it turned out great. All in all, we lost a shelf, but gained a lot more usable space.