Storage Cupboard

After living in our house for a year now and just having all DIY/tool type things piled in a big heap on the floor, I have finally got round to building a storage solution for them!

I bought some white covered chipboard from my local DIY store as it was on offer for €9.99/m2 and I didn't need really good wood as it was only going to be a cupboard for storing tools in the cellar.

I saw this plan for a cupboard and basically adapted it to suit my needs.

I used Sketchup to design my 2m high and 1.20m wide cupboard:

I got all my wood cut to size for free where I bought it and assembled it as follows:

First, I marked equal points all down the inside of the cupboard sides and drilled shallow holes to fit metal shelf holders. This means that I can move my shelfs to be different heigts, depending on what I store.
A good trick for this was the measure the depth of the metal holder and then mark the drill at this height with masking tape so you can't drill deeper than necessary.

I then built the shell of the cupboard by joining the sides to the top and bottom shelf using pockethole screws. I marked where I wanted the shelves, predrilled holes and glued and clamped the pieces together at the same time as screwing.

I used glue and nails to attach the 3mm mdf backing and used brown packing tape for the vertical cut I had to do to make sure it fit in the car.

I built the frame for the front of the door separately using pocket hole screws and then attached it to the shell of the cupboard with nails and glue.

I then built the doors separately by making a frame out of wood as the chipboard just didn't quite cut the mustard and then attaching the mdf backing.

The doors also have pegboard on the inside to hang up smaller tools with hooks. I put wood scraps behind the pegboard so it would have space behind it for the hooks and just drilled through the pegboard holes and into the wood scraps to keep it in place.

I attached the doors with a 3mm gap between the doors and the frame using hinges that I had painted black. The handles are ones that I got from Ikea designed for the kitchen but I thought they would go well with my cupboard!

The doors stay shut due to a magnetic door latch at the bottom.

I then added a bit of detail moulding cut at 45° angles with my mitre saw and painted the whole thing white and ... there it is!