Old Chest Of Drawers	New COD Takes Shape	Finished Chest Of Drawes
Chest Of Drawers

We decided we wanted a little more compact COD (Chest Of Drawers) in our two bedrooms and they should blend in with the other things we had in the house and not take up so much room.   I wanted a COD that would fit under a light switch and not stick out so far from the wall (our house is tiny) and still give lots of storage volume.

	Our old store-bought COD:
	56" tall, 36" wide, and 18-3/4" deep = 37800 in³
	six drawers: 28-1/2" wide, 15" deep, and 6-3/8" high, = 16351.875 in³

	The new COD:
	50" high, 36" wide, and 15" deep = 27000 in³
	6 drawers 32-1/2"wide, 14" deep, and 7" high = 19698 in³
	plus 1 drawer 32-1/2" wide, 14" deep, and 3-1/2" high = 1641.5 in³

	Old: Total of 16351.875 in³ storage in a space of 37800 in³
	New: Total of 21339.5 in³ storage in a space of 27000 in³

1 ft³ = 1728in³. Thats a almost 3ft³ more storage space, very effecient in a small house.  

There will be 7 drawers.   The top drawer will be 3-1/2" high, the bottom 6 drawers will be 7" high, with a small space between the 3rd and 4thd drawer.   The top will be solid (edge laminated) pine, the frame will be 1x4 around pine inset panels (pine face, plywood backing).   All frame joints will be mortise and tenon.   The drawers will have a picture frame front with pine inset panel (pine face, plywood backing).   Drawer front picture frame joints will be mitered with type FF biscuits.

Pine
I'm using cheap WW or pine (lots of knots) which means I do a lot of machining or sanding to make it look OK.   It also cuts the price almost in half, and I'm on a fixed budget.   When they say White Wood (WW) I don't know what kind of wood they're talking about, white pine or fir, etc.

Inset Panels
This COD will have pine inset panels on each side and the drawer fronts.   The COD will be finished natural, like all the other stand alone furniture I've built, with pine inset panels.   Previously I made pine inset panels by resawing 3/4" boards and edge join them, so they end up 5/16" thick but they tend to crack with age.   So I'm going to laminate a thin resawn panel to a piece of 3/16" plywood backer to stabilize it.   The finished panel should be 1/2" thick (5/16 + 3/16 = 8/16 or 1/2).   This is the first time I've tried this so I'll have to go slow and figure out how.   I'll resaw 1x6s, plane them to a unifom thickness, and edge join them.   Cut the panel, and a 3/16" plywood back to size, then laminate the two together.   The trick to laminating a large flat panel is uniform pressure, so I'm going to build a pressure frame that uses my woodworking bench as a base.

Second Build
I'm making the cabinet frame stonger and the drawer front frame slimmer.  
I will use full width 1x4s (3-1/2") in the frame instead of ripping them to 3", changing the horizontal internal braces from 1x2 to 1x4, using mortise and tenon at all frame joints.  
The drawer front frame will be ripped to 1" wide (was 1-1/2").

Click For Larger Pic

Drawer Sizing Info:
Top drawer: H1 = 3-3/4", H2 = 3-1/2".
Lower drawers: H1 = 7-1/8" and H2 = 5-1/2".

Lumber for the frame from Lowes.   Note, the knots etc, I bought the cheapest lumber Lowes had, and yes, I picked out these particular boards.   I will have to run lots of it across the jointer to get a good surface and do lots of sanding.

Please excuse Betty's octopus outlet.   The wires will make it difficult to screw this chest to the wall, if we leave them behind it.

Closer look at top drawers.   Look at the character all those knots give it.

In every COD I ever had the top drawer was a junk drawer.

Now the clothes storage.

You can see the inset panels.

Second build, in the Master Bed Room.   Notice how the drawer front frame is narrower.   Also please excuse the yellow light, the fixture has CFLs but they're the soft type which I don't like.

Look at the old COD foot print in the carpet, it stuck out about 4" farther into the room and made it a little harder just to walk between it and the bed.   Also I can move it closer to the door, making more room on that wall.

How it looks from the bed.

Closer look at the grain in the inset panels.

With one drawer open.