[ender6]

Hi Everyone,

First post and all. My renovation project started with a kitchen, and now it's also a master bath. Now I need some advice from some IKEA master(s).

The sink I'd like to use measures 39" w x 18.5" d and 5" h and is bolted to wall through the back. The idea was to create a floating cabinet using the top 2 drawers of a 3 drawer 36" kitchen base, ripped to 18" deep.

Questions:

1) What additional reinforcement should I use for the cabinet? I saw a previous post that should some wooden triangular brace, but I can't seem to find that anymore. (link, someone?)

2) The drawers with the drain has been the problem.

a) Can I just use the drawers from the 12 7/8 deep base cabinets? Then, could I combine two 18" wide drawers into a single drawer or do I have to create some additional supports and keep the two drawers separate.

I could use separate 15" wide drawers on the top so I wouldn't have to make a cut out for the drain.

b) Or, at least on the bottom drawer, could I cut a 24" deep Rationell to some depth and mount it on the 12 7/8 sliders? (Can you actually cut these drawers depth-wise?)

Any links and ideas would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[splatgirl]

I'm not clear on how you'll get "floating" from a regular base cabinet. Were you intending to have it float just the height of the legs? If that's the case, frankly I don't see the point because if you mount the legs at the back corners and then maybe relocate the front two back to the middle of the carcass, they'll hardly be visible and you'll produce the same effect without having to worry about wall-hanging a cabinet that isn't meant to have to support it's own weight.
Aside from that, I think that between reducing the depth, reinforcing and then messing around with trying to get drawers to work, you're talking about so much screwing around that it's not worth it to even use the carcass in the first place. Build or have a carcass built that is structurally sound enough to wall mount and accomodate drawers+drain. You can still use IKEA drawer/door fronts if that is your preference.

The cabinets I've seen that have drawers built to accommodate a P trap either have a V or U shaped slot built into them. I am pretty adept at envisioning mods, but I can't see a way that you'll be able to have two IKEA drawers in there because the center support mounts to the inside top of the carcass to hold the glides and that's right where I assume your plumbing needs to go. Likewise, cutting them doesn't really get you anything even if you could do that successfully because there's still nothing to hold the glides in the center.

If you must proceed in the vein you describe, start from scratch with custom built drawer boxes or at the very least some that aren't made from metal and use side glides. There are drawer glides that mount from above, like a keyboard shelf has, and I think you could figure out a way to build drawer boxes to use these and then attach whatever fronts you want to them...the actual box wouldn't even need to be the full width of the front. At that point, however, you're looking at having to rebuilt the whole top of the carcass to give you something other than air and slats to support the drawers. You could also consider using a shelf and bottom mount drawer hardware.

Again, I think this is well beyond any kind of mod that seems like it makes sense and that it would be much simpler and probably less costly in the long run to just start from scratch with non-IKEA.

[ender6]

Hmmm...thanks for the idea Splatgirl.

Floating - well, it would be up by about the height of the legs and the lower 12" drawer that I'd remove. Having said that, I never considered building my own cabinet because I'm a hack not a carpenter, but I figured I could put a couple of pieces up on a table saw at least. However, now that you mention it...

As it turns out though, on this weekend's trip to Ikea, I found a $29 two pack of drawers that go with the Effektiv cabinets. They're 33" wide and 14" deep.

Drawers and slides now solved. Cabinet - so is the frame not structurally sound enough for this application?

Thanks in advance.

[splatgirl]

Originally Posted by ender6

Floating - well, it would be up by about the height of the legs and the lower 12" drawer that I'd remove. Having said that, I never considered building my own cabinet because I'm a hack not a carpenter, but I figured I could put a couple of pieces up on a table saw at least. However, now that you mention it...


Drawers and slides now solved. Cabinet - so is the frame not structurally sound enough for this application?

Thanks in advance.

So you're talking about ripping the depth AND the height? Now I think you're even crazier
If you have a table saw and are considering this in the first place, you can build a simple box from 3/4 in. ply or melamine with a SOLID BACK that will do a much better job. But to answer your question, no the AKURUM carcasses aren't structurally sound enough for your application as is. I think that you could definitely beef up what's left of your carcass to the point that it will work, but you're deviating quite a bit from the types of loads they were designed to accommodate and it's going to be a lot of messing around.
The base cabinets aren't designed to be wall hung. Unlike the wall cabinets, they don't have solid tops, only slats across the front and rear which makes them inherently less sturdy and stable than the wall carcasses. In a normal application it doesn't matter because you've got them resting firmly on the floor and topped with a rigid counter, but you've removed both of those sturd-ifying elements.
So IMO that is deficiency A, and you can add replacing the slats with a solid top to your cut list. And once you get that thing ripped down to the depth you want and have figured out how to make it go back together all nice so that the back panel fits into the channel and does it's job, you're going to have to redrill the holes to accommodate the wall mounting brackets so you have a way to hang it. Oh, but once you get it hung, you'll probably discover that it won't hang straight because the back lip that would normally make a wall cabinet play nice with the mounting rail and hardware isn't as deep as on the wall cabinets.
Anyway, at that point basically what you've got is a lesser constructed, extra tall over the fridge cabinet, a WALL carcass which, despite being a wall carcass still comes with specific instruction from IKEA saying not to hang it without additional support from below....

Again, I'm not trying to be a pain in your butt, but I think there are about a hundred simpler ways to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish and none of them involve starting with a base cabinet.

[bcekn]

What if you made it with support on the bottom, but farther back from the front edge and hidden in some way, like mirror on the toekick, or painted the same colour as the floor or something?