Discuss help with a banquette on IKEAFANS.com. We're Personalizing the IKEA Experience. help with a banquette - Post here about your modification project details or questions. Share ideas and take some away - mods are cool!.
I want to make a bench or banquette out of short wall cabinet. But I want to put drawers in it. But I know some of the drawer fronts only can be purchased as sets.
So what size cabinets would be best? 24", 30" or 36"? and what cabinet height will a drawer fit?
Won't the 36" size sag a bit too much in the middle if people sit on it?
My advice in two words: think pullouts! We have a 15" high, 36" wide shallow depth fridge cab set up as a bench with pullouts. Cut the partition piece in half and mounted at bottom instead of top, purchased two half depth 18" internal drawers, and mounted doors as pullout fronts. The whole thing sits on the plastic "buns" and is topped with a chunk of leftover Pronomen. Since the Pronomen is resting on the sides, they are carrying the weight, and so far, not even a squeak of trouble! We use it as a hall bench and my daughter's shoes are stored below. Found a couple of cardboard boxes that fill the total inner space and sit in the drawers, so she can pile things up and they don't spill out. I would have done full depth cab and drawers but we didn't have the space...
Nope, no middle support (my husband kinda freaked over that at first but I think he's since reconciled to my insanity!). The partition piece is the chunk you usually install hanging from the top of a 30" or 36" four drawer cab so you can mount rails in the middle and have two drawers on the top layer. It's meant for a 24" deep cab so we had to cut it in half. It doesn't span the entire height of the cab by any means. But with the sturdy bench top resting on the sides, just as your kitchen counters do, the weight doesn't push on the middle anyway. I'm not sure I'd do it without something pretty stable for a top, however.
One reason we used the two drawers is that you have to mix and match parts to get half drawers in the 36" width. Then you have to reconcile the height of the actual drawer fronts available and waste some of the set--or fiddle with joining door fronts to create a single front. It just seemed easier to do the two pullout drawers.
We're fussy and slow about measuring so we spent a lot of time on this project making sure the partition was cut perfectly and mounted perfectly. It would have been nice to save on that, but we would have fussed over the alternatives instead, so I doubt we would have saved anything in the end.
How long will the total bench be? Who will be sitting on it? That makes a difference too.
P.S. I think Woodswell/Anne posted some stuff about creating half depth wide drawers...
i used fan cabinets cause i didn't want my cabs to go all the way back, but i wanted full depth drawers. i drilled holes in the glides to mount to the cabinet holes (these pull outs carry a TON of stuff, keep most of my tools in there)...tons of pics in my gallery. i think it's the last project i really posted about (should update since that room is *almost* done, finally!!!!)
think outside the box, you can do whatever you like. and if you're building support for the top to rest on you don't have to worry about the sagging as much. i cleated the back side and ran vertical bracing as well, just to be safe (simple framing)
i know what your
dh
is capable of, you'll be fine!
{ftr, i MISS you around here lady!}
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DH definition
DH usually means Dear Husband (or, pick your own adjective starting with D).
OK - I think I've got it. But what size drawer front fits those cabinets? Do I have to buy the drawer front in a set of 3 or 4?
Did you see my sketchup model I uploaded with the first post? I was going to either add a cleat against the wall or frame it the way I showed in sketchup. But I don't know whether to go with 24", 30" or 36" cabinets. The 24" drawer fronts come separate, don't they? But not the 30" or 36"?
Is that why you went with 18" wide drawers, Beth? Because you can buy them separately?
i joined 2 15" wide doors in order to make the 30" drawers. it was a really easy mod, just drilled 1/4" hole and inset glue and dowels. you could also use biscuit joints or metal spines, but the dowels were really easy
Yeah, you can get the 18" "half" drawers and 36" with a bit of lip was just about the right size, so it seemed pretty natural to go with that and turn the 18" doors to pullout fronts.
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