If you’ve been woodworking for any amount of time you probably have a decent collection of hardware, for me it was an unorganized disaster in the shop. I had hinges in one spot, knobs in another and of course screws were in at least 20 different places! The other trick here is that I have a decent amount of hardware but not enough to fill up a whole cabinet, so all I need is a small but organized place to keep this stuff until someday when I can justify building a full apothecary style cabinet.

When I set to designing this project I wanted something simple, but I also wanted to try out two key building features that I hadn’t used before. The first is the way the outer structure is made, in its basic form there are two frames with box joints on the corners. These two frames are then connected to create the final structure. This isn’t the most efficient way to build a case but it lets you use box joints or dovetails in the corners, which I think looks awesome! The other feature is the wood drawer slide, this is not an uncommon method to use when making drawers but I’ve never used it before because I looked at it as being inferior to ball bearing slides, which in reality is true, a ball bearing slide is going to be smoother and negate some of the weight that’s in the drawer but they also cost at least $20 per drawer, wheres as the wood slides cost a few cents each. One of the most surprising things I found out though when I finished this project was how smooth the wood slides were. With a good coating of paste on the drawers and slides they move in & out with no issue.

The other interesting topic that this project brought up for me was the idea of having nice looking shop furniture. After building my toolbox a few months ago. I’ve found that it makes me happy to look at it when I’m working in the shop. It’s a small thing but I think as woodworkers we tend to have amazing pieces of furniture all over our homes but when it comes to the shop, most people just slap together some simple plywood cabinets and call it a day. Now I have a new goal for my future shop since the space I’m in now is only temporary. When I finally get a more permanent setup, I’m going to take the time to make the place look nice, kind of like a shaker style classroom. That was not only will the space behind me look great in the videos, but I’ll get to enjoy a bunch of beautiful furniture as I work on building more!