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Bathroom wall cabinet
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Build some extra storage space in the bathroom
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By Dave Bond, photos by Tracy Cox, illustration by Len Churchill
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Frame-and-panel doors hide items often consigned to a medicine cabinet, freeing space over the sink for an attractive mirror
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Bringing the Parts Together
This is the step in which things have to go smoothly, or there's a big mess to deal with. Having just dry-fitted and labelled all the parts, make sure you have the necessary clamps on hand, pre-adjusted. When everything you need is within reach, apply glue to all the slots in one side and the corresponding slots in the shelf ends. Now butter up enough biscuits to fill these slots and assemble this part of the framework. A clean flux brush is ideal for spreading glue here.
Next, apply glue to the slots in the other side and the slots in the other ends of the shelves. Butter up more biscuits to fill these slots, nestle the second side in place, and then clamp everything together while making sure that the back edges of the shelves line up correctly with the sides. Don't worry about alignment of the front shelf edges for now, since everything can be made flush here after the glue dries. Check and adjust the framework for square, then install the central drawer divider with glue and a few small finishing nails.
Doors and Drawers
As with the sides, I like to use thicker material for doorframes too. It stays flatter than 3/4" stock, and it looks better too. With the framework assembled, you can now measure accurately for the doors. The overall door opening should be 18" x 23 1/2", so you need to build a pair of doors measuring 11 3/4" wide x 18" high. You'll need to plane these later for an optimal fit. Notice that the top rail and the side stiles are two inches wide, while the bottom rail is 2 1/2" wide. A little extra wood along the lower part of each door gives more traditional proportions.
The doors I designed include simple 1/4"-thick flat panels cut from solid stock and bookmatched so they look great. Being split from the same piece of wood, each side of the grain pattern is a mirror image. You could use a plywood panel or a raised panel, depending on your taste and patience.
Prepare wood for door stiles and rails, including a 1/4"-wide x 1/2"-deep dado along all the inside edges of rails and stiles. Since this groove is made to accept the door panels, you may need to tweak the dado width depending on the stock you're using. So-called 1/4" plywood is often substantially thinner than 1/4", so check before you rout.
The plans show how the rails are joined to the stiles with 1/4" x 1/2" stub tenons. Prepare these now and dry-fit the door frames together. Check for square and overall size, and then measure for the door panels. The door-panel height can be fairly tight at the top and bottom, but you should leave 1/8" of space for seasonal movement along each side of the solid panels. Plywood panels can fit tight all around because they're immune to moderate humidity changes.
Sand the panels and the inside edges of the frames with 120-grit sandpaper, then dry-fit the door parts to make sure they come together properly. This is a great time to prefinish the panels so they don't show any unfinished areas if dry weather causes them to shrink. When you're ready for final door assembly, apply glue to the stub tenons and also to the corresponding grooves in the stiles. Whatever you do, work neatly. You must avoid getting glue on the panels since it could interfere with seasonal movement and cause cracking. Clamp each door immediately after assembly and check to make sure that the corners are square and flat.
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