1. Home
  2. Woodworking Forum
  3. Plans for 8' shop cabinets

Plans for 8' shop cabinets

I want to line one wall in my shop (approximately 30' long) with a variety of cabinets. I do not like the kitchen-like layout with a 3' high cabinet sitting on the floor with a countertop, a space in between, and a 3' high cabinet hanging from the wall above. I dislike this arrangement because I have doubts about how much weight my wall can hold, and I always find the space between the upper and lower cabinets to be too small and too dark.

I'm thinking about making several 3' cabinets (with countertops) and several

8' cabinets (without countertops), and butting them together. All of them would be floor standing, and none would be hanging from the wall. Has anyone tried this type of layout?

I can easily make the 3' cabinets. I have plans from a variety of books, magazines, New Yankee workshop, etc. which I can steal ideas from.

I haven't found any plans for the 8' tall cabinets. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, and I don't want to build a cabinet only to find out after the fact that my design was a disaster. Does anyone know of any plans for such a cabinet?

Reply to
AL
Loading thread data ...

I don't see why it can't be done. For easiest installation, make the tall cabinets in 2 sections, and use a center band to hide the junction. I don't recall seeing any plans for this sort of cabinet, but I'm going to be building something very similar for a part of my kitchen...we had a pantry in our last house and my wife insists on one here. There's space. We had planned a floor to ceiling cabinet. Make it deeper and go.

If you make your tall cabinets shallow, make sure they're strongly attached to the wall.

Otherwise, you might consider the classic 12" (approx.) deep top and 25" deep bottom, using a french cleat to hang the wall cabinets. Google this NG for french cleat. If it's too dark, which I really doubt, you can always add some extra under-cabinet lighting.

Charlie Self "It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man." H. L. Mencken

Reply to
Charlie Self

Ditto. I did a 7' cab for my pantry and said "never again". 4' pieces are much more managable. In a shop setting the center band would be much less of an aesthetic compromise.

*for me* I find that working > 4' sections increases the inevitable subtle errors. I find that out-of-squareness errors tend to be linear with size so components tend to mitigate that problem.

-Steve

Reply to
Stephen M

Why do you need a plan? Sketch one out on paper and build it.

Reply to
Dave

Why do you need a plan? Sketch one out on paper and build it.

Reply to
Dave

Why do you need a plan? Sketch one out on paper and build it.

Reply to
Dave

Why do you need a plan? Sketch one out on paper and build it.

Reply to
Dave

My ISP is all screwed up and put this reply in the out box and every time I accessed my mail it kept sending it. Sorry!!

Reply to
Dave

Why do you need a plan? Sketch one out on paper and build it.

Reply to
Dave

For the counter top versions, consider building a size that the cheap borg tops will fit. You can buy post formed counter tops pretty cheap. Stay alert for "mistakes" and "wrong colors" counter tops in Lowes and Home Depot. You can often find "real deals" for cheap money...

I would build two four footers and stack them up.

Building a square eight foot cabinet with todays material is gonna be a bitch.

I also would have a problem with a door that large.

The four footers will also be MUCH easier to move around.

In fact, I would build the uppers with shelves and the lower units with full extension drawers. You will find that you need to store LOTS of small item that just work out better in drawers. I use the word "drawer" when I really refer to a "tray" style drawer.

A eight footer(top four footer) is also gonna be a bitch to reach into. Any shelf much higher than six feet is almost no usable.

Buy a couple sheets of MDF and build a "mock up" of your "proposed" cabinet to see how it's all gonna work out.

That would be better than thirty feet of bad design....

AL wrote:

Reply to
Pat Barber

Dave, Did you want to make sure everyone saw your reply? :-)

Reply to
Lowell Holmes

AL:

Pop Woodworking ran an shop cabinet plan about 3/4 years ago that had a very tall cabinet. I built two - out of MDF (never again) but I can't recall the height, but they work close to 8'ft. I found the height and weight hard to manage and would build them in two 4 ft sections and join them in the middle with some banding. I also think that Am Woodworker has a "monster" shop cabinet almost that height. Search their indexes.

Good luck!

MJ Wallace

Reply to
MJ Wallace

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.