Get more kitchen storage in one weekend by building storage space into your kitchen baseboards.
Time Multiple Days
ComplexityIntermediate
Cost$100 to $300
Introduction
Installing under-cabinet storage drawers sounds like a tough job, but it's actually fairly easy. DIYing it will save you a lot of money over hiring a pro. To simplify the process, we designed self-contained drawer units that you can assemble in your shop and then slip into place. Even if you've never built or installed a drawer before, you can probably do this.
Will under-cabinet storage work with my cabinets and kitchen baseboard?
Under-cabinet storage will probably work with your kitchen setup. Most kitchen cabinets are similar to the ones we show here, with sides that extend to the floor. However, if your cabinets stand on legs rather than the cabinet sides, you'll need to use a different method. To check if that's the case, look for screw heads or holes near the corners inside of the cabinet box.
If your cabinets are constructed like ours, then let's get building!
Preperation
Here are a few factors to consider and prep work to do before you get started.
Considerations
- If the cabinet is more than 30 inches wide, consider installing two drawers rather than one. Wider drawers tend to bind as you slide them in or out.
- Your drawers will be shallow; don't expect to store kettles in them. A 4-inch-high toe space will give you storage space that's about 3 inches deep.
- You can install drawers under a sink cabinet (or a bathroom vanity). But if the sink's plumbing runs through the bottom of the cabinet, the drawers will have to be shorter.
Choosing Tools
- You can build these with a circular saw, but a table saw and miter saw will be faster and more accurate.
- A nail gun is another big time-saver, though you can hammer everything together with 1-1/4-in. finish nails instead.
Choosing Drawer Slides
Two of our experts, Andy Riehle from Knight Cabinetry and Joseph Patrick of Lamont Bros Design & Construction, both recommend Blum's Movento for all hardware, especially in areas that will get potential rough usage from the toe-kick open.
Movento has a high load capacity of 90 to 150 pounds and its sag values also make it ideal for applications near the floor, says Riehle. These slides also come with soft-close, which makes them really pleasant to operate.
The drawback to Movento over cheaper hardware is that you'll sacrifice a small amount of vertical space. But the trade-off is worth it, says Patrick, because of their precise alignment adjustments for side, height, tilt and depth.
"This is especially useful in kitchens where the floor isn't level, making the installation much easier and more professional," says Patrick.
- Note: The drawer slides pictured in this project are not Movento, but rather a cheaper full-extension side-mount slide. Whatever you buy, be sure to choose the full-extension option, as the 3/4-extension ones will only allow you to access about half of the drawer. Also, consider soft-close options. "More and more we're seeing people ditch traditional drawer slides for soft-close," says Drew Mansur, director of TileCloud. "Soft-close drawer slides aren't just a fancy piece of hardware. Yes, they're smooth and quiet, but they also prevent slamming, which can extend the life of both the drawers and their contents."
Choosing Wood Materials
- Use high-grade hardwood plywood, like birch or oak, as construction-grade tends to warp. Most home centers carry plywood in 2 x 4-ft. and/or 4 x 4-ft. sheets, so you don't have to buy a full 4 x 8 sheet.
- Pick out straight pine 1x4s for the cradle sides. (Check out these tips for picking the best plywood for the job.)
- If your toe-space height is 4 inches or less, a 1×4 board will do. For a taller toe space, you'll need a 1×6.
- For the drawer faces, remember to pick hardwood that matches your cabinets. If your cabinets are made from a less common species of wood, try a lumberyard that carries a wider selection or improvise: With the right stain, you can make birch or maple approximately match the color of just about any wood. The grain may look different, but that difference usually isn't noticeable in the dark toe space.
Possible Upgrades
To have the toe-kick option, you'll also need to buy a touch-latch system, which allows you to open the drawer simply by pushing on it. "It's far more convenient than reaching under the drawer to fiddle with hardware," says Patrick.
Additionally, if your under-cabinet storage will sit flush with your cabinets, you should steer clear of handles for safety reasons. "Handles that close to the ground can become a tripping or bumping hazard," says Mansur. "In this situation, push-to-open drawer slides are your best bet. They're easy to use and also harder for young kids to figure out."
Patrick also recommends adding a Blum's Space Step, a little stool that slides out from the toe-kick area. "It's particularly useful for children or shorter individuals who need to reach higher shelves," he says. "The Space Step also functions as a drawer, making it a versatile and space-efficient feature that could add real value to the kitchen."
Drawer Sizing
Here are three basic measurements to use to size these drawers to fit under any cabinet.
Measurement A
- Subtract 1-1/2 in. from A to determine the width of drawer sides, front and back.
- Subtract 1/2 in. from A to determine the width of drawer faces. The length of each face depends on the width of the cabinet.
Measurement B
- Subtract 3-3/4 in. from B to determine the length of the drawer front and back. This will make the entire drawer/cradle assembly 1/4 in. smaller than the width of the cavity.
Measurement C
- Subtract 1/4 in. from C to determine the length of the cradle and drawer sides. This is also the maximum length of the drawer slides you can use.
Tools Required
- 4-in-1 screwdriver
- Air compressor
- Air hose
- Brad nail gun
- Clamps
- Cordless drill
- Drill bit set
- Framing square
- Miter saw
- Paintbrush
- Reciprocating saw
- Safety glasses
- Self-centering drill bit
- Table saw
- Tape measure
Materials Required
- 1-1/4-in. brad nails
- 1-5/8-in. screws
- 1-in. screws
- 12' of 1x4 pine
- 3 pairs of drawer slides (soft close ideally)
- 6' of 1x6 maple
- Blum's Space Step (optional)
- Drawer pulls
- One 2' x 4' sheet of 1/2“ birch plywood
- One 4' x 8' sheet of 1/4“ birch plywood
- Polyurethane
- Stain
- Touch latch systems (for toe-kick operation) or drawer pulls
- Wood glue
Project step-by-step (8)
Step 1
Remove the toe-kick plate and measure
Before buying materials, open up the cavity under the cabinets and take measurements.
- Pull off the “toe-kick,” which is the strip of plywood or particleboard in the toe space. Usually, the toe-kick is held by just a few small nails and is easy to pry off. If you don’t plan to cover the entire toe space with drawers, be gentle so you can later cut the toe-kick to length and reinstall a section.
- If layers of flooring have been added since the cabinets were installed, you’ll have to pull the top edge of the toe-kick outward first and then pry it up to clear the built-up floor.
- Remove the toe-kick backing under the cabinets.
- Drill a 1-in. hole and cut the backing with a drywall saw. Then, grab a flashlight and check for obstructions.
- Break out any blockings with a chisel or pry bar.
- Pull out or cut off any nails.
- Now, you’re ready to take the three measurements to determine the drawers’ sizes.
Step 2
Build the under cabinet storage boxes
Drawer slides require a precise 1/2-in. space on both sides of the drawer; otherwise, your drawer won’t move well, if at all. So, to sidestep that precision work, build each drawer first and then build a cradle around it. If you want to install two drawers under one wide cabinet, build a single cradle with both drawers sharing one of the cradle sides and the cradle base.
- Nail the drawers together. If you’re using finish nails rather than a nail gun, pre-drill so you don’t split the plywood parts.
- Remember to place the front and back between the sides.
- Then, measure and cut the drawer bottoms.
- As you install each bottom, be sure the drawer box is square, using a large carpenter’s square or using the plywood bottom as a guide (this only works if you’ve cut the bottoms perfectly square).
- Cut the 1×4 cradle sides to the same length as the drawer sides. In most cases, you can use 1x4s at full width (3-1/2 inches). But if your toe-space height (measurement A) is less than 4 inches, cut the cradle sides to a width 1/2 inch less than the toe-space height.
Step 3
Attach slides
- Mark screw lines on the drawer and cradle sides.
- Pull each slide apart to separate the drawer member from the cabinet member.
- Then screw them on.
Step 4
Build the cradle
Our drawer and cradle sides were the same length as the drawer slides, but yours may not be, so be sure to position the front ends of each drawer member and cabinet member flush with the fronts of the drawer and cradle sides.
- Slip the slides back together.
- Lay the drawer upside down and screw on the cradle base.
- Then, flip the whole unit over and inspect your work.
- Make sure the drawer opens smoothly. When the drawer is closed, the front of it should be flush with the cradle sides, give or take 1/16 inches.
- Any problems are easy to fix by removing screws and repositioning the slides.
Note: With our drawer units assembled, the cradle sides are exactly the same height as the drawers. Your drawers may come out a bit higher or lower.
Step 5
Install the kitchen baseboard drawers
- Before you remove the drawers from their cradles, number them to avoid mix-ups later. Each drawer will slide smoothest in the cradle that was built for it.
- Slip each cradle into place and fasten it to the cabinet with four 1-5/8-inch screws.
- If you have flooring that’s more than 1/4 inch thick, first set scraps of 1/4- or 1/2-in. plywood under the cabinet to support the cradle. The cradle base can be higher than or flush with the flooring but not lower than it.
- Position the cradle sides flush with the cabinet sides and tight against one side (Photo 5).
- Screw the cradle to the cabinet, starting with the tight side.
- On the other side, don’t drive in the screws so hard that you distort the cradle. If the drawer doesn’t glide smoothly, slightly loosen those screws.
- Also be sure the drawer doesn’t drag on the floor when opened. Load a few heavy objects into the drawer and open it. If it drags, remove the front screws from the cradle and slip washers under it. That will give the drawer a slight upward tilt to clear the floor.
Step 6
Fasten the drawer face
- Cut the drawer faces to width.
- When you cut them to length, avoid measuring mistakes by marking them while they’re in place. Leave a 1/8- to 1/4-in. gap between neighboring faces.
- At the end of a row of cabinets, make the face flush with the outer side of the cabinet. The method we used to attach the faces works best with a nail gun (Photo 6). Driving nails with a hammer can knock the drawer or cradle out of position.
- If you don’t have a nail gun, stick the faces in place with double-face carpet tape. Then pull out each drawer and attach the face by driving two 1-in. screws from inside the drawer.
- With the faces attached, be sure they don’t drag on the floor. If necessary, raise them with washers as described above.
Step 7
Finish the drawers
- Remove the drawers from their cradles.
- Unscrew the slides from the drawers and sand the drawer faces with 120-grit sandpaper.
- Also, prepare a few stain-testing blocks, using leftover scraps from the faces and sanding them. We removed one cabinet door and took it to a paint store to have matching stain custom-mixed, but if you have the patience to experiment, you could buy a couple of cans of stain and mix them to create your own.
- Either way, apply the stain to your test blocks before you stain the faces. The match doesn’t have to be perfect, since the overhanging cabinet fronts will shade the faces.
- After staining the faces, we finished our drawers—faces and boxes—with two coats of water-based polyurethane.
- Before reinstalling the drawers, add the drawer pulls or knobs. We couldn’t find pulls that closely matched our existing cabinet hardware, so we chose pulls that fit over the tops of the drawer faces and are hidden under the cabinets.
Step 8
About the Experts
- Joseph Patrick is owner of Lamont Bros Design & Construction in the Pacific Northwest, where he leads a team of 40 design-build and remodel professionals. He has more than 20 years of experience in the building industry, with a background as a carpenter and kitchen designer.
- Andrew Riehle is a custom cabinetry and furniture expert with more than 30 years of experience. Before his current position overseeing new business development for Knight Cabinetry, he was owner of Akamai Design, a custom cabinet and furniture manufacturing organization.
- Drew Mansur is co-founder and director of TileCloud, an Australian tile and homewares store.
