I've got a notion to build a couple of wardrobes for our bedroom. As an idea, it has scarcely reached the "half-assed" stage. There's no set design yet. They would be roughly 32W x 24D x 84H. As there's no way to carry objects that size through the house, I would need to make two boxes for each unit, to be stacked on top of each other on site. That would probably necessitate installing the face frame on site as well.
My question involves materials. The wardrobes would be tall, well above eye-level, and would be located in two corners of the room. As such, the only surfaces that would show would be the doors, the face frame and one side of each unit.
I've taken an awful long time to get decent results finishing much smaller projects. I haven't got the time or gumption to take on the finishing of something as big as this. So I'm considering prefinished plywood, or possibly even melamine for the basic boxes, with a prefinished ply panel on the visible side. Is melamine a nighmare for a relative novice?
As for the doors, I'm not sure what to do yet. We have a couple of similar wardrobes that have "faux" panel doors made of flat 3/4" ply with 2"x1/4" strips appliqued on to simulate vertical 3-panel doors. (I didn't build them).
I did build some simple panel doors for another project, but they were a good bit smaller. I could conceivably use thin prefinished ply with solid frames. Either way I would somehow need to finish the face frames and door frames (and perhaps some molding at the top and bottom)for a reasonable match, and without getting any of the finish on the prefinished material. Presumably I'd finish those pieces before installing them. I'm wondering if a deliberate contrast might be easier for me to accomplish than a "match".
I'm asking for basic pointers, pros and cons, pitfalls a weekend warrior like me is likely to stumble into, etc. My goal is to make something functional and decent-looking in a reasonable amount of time.
As always, thanks in advance.