Cabinet Projects

We had records and CDs stored in boxes in our basement. For some reason, I never disposed of them. Recently, I wanted to make them more accessible for occasional play, so the idea of building a cabinet emerged.

The purpose of this cabinet was initially for records. It was designed to be a very modular cabinet that could be disassembled, with the shelves transforming into storage boxes. The project began with the records. Each of the nine lower cubes is an individual record box with handles. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but four boxes are made of maple, and five boxes are stained oak. The boxes are secured in place by gravity. Each set of 3 boxes rests on a notched rail system to keep them stable.

The CD cases rest atop the records, once again secured by gravity. The lower two-shelf cases are constructed from darkly stained pine with a thin plywood center shelf. I dislike the handles, but they allow for easy transport.

Originally, two sets of two shelves were insufficient to accommodate all our CDs, so I added some cases to stack on top of the previously built ones. Sticking with my inconsistent wood stain, they were finished with a natural coat. This time, the handles are glued to the ends of the boxes.

Finally, several shelves were added in front of the CD cases to hold the CDs currently being played.

This cabinet is similar to CD cabinets. It was built several years before the record cabinets when Blu-rays were still relatively popular. These days, it's rare to pull out a disc, as streaming is so easy. The cabinet is secured to the wall using a long wooden French cleat, allowing for easy removal.

This cabinet bookshelf is a simple oak plywood cabinet. It was custom-made to accommodate the subwoofer (see the bottom left of the photo). There are shelves for storing items and an angled candy shelf on top. Notice that, once again, there are only straight lines.

Each of the headboard's two posts was made from 1x4 oak boards. A pair of 1x4 pine boards were affixed to the two posts. The headboard is secured to the cross boards using a simple wooden French cleat, allowing for easy disassembly of the entire headboard if necessary.

This photo of the headboard panel illustrates the basic design of the headboard. The picture frame-like pattern is constructed using biscuit joints. The intention was to create a medium oak center framed by contrasting maple and further surrounded by additional oak pieces. Finally, vertical maple pieces at either end of the headboard add even more contrast.

This pattern would have been more effective if the oak pieces had been color-matched. The lighter oak pieces reduce the contrast with the maple.

Although this isn't a cabinet, I wanted to include it somewhere in these pages, so here it is on the cabinet page.

This image features a headboard made of oak and maple, flanked by two posts. The side posts consist of four 1x4 pieces glued together to create two square posts. These posts are connected to one another using two 1x4s, with the lower 1x4 linking to the bed frame. The headboard itself is suspended from the upper 1x4 by a French cleat, allowing for easy removal.