FuzzeWuzze's Coffin Keezer + Cabinet storage Build

[FuzzeWuzze]

Well i was going to screw in from the inside anyways as well as glue, so if the gluing doesnt end up working that's alright

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Another Friday, another night drinking and not doing much.

Got the wood cut for the right side cabinet.

With the 1" overhang on the front i have ill have 12" up front for wine bottles(i measured a few we have and they were like 10-11" but i know some whites are longer so it gives some wiggle room), and gives us just under 18" usable space in the back. I'll probably do what Dfess mentioned and drill peg holes for moveable shelves, im guessing 3 will fit as its about 30" high, including the bottom gives us 4 shelves.

I was able to successfully screw the cabinet cubby in from the backside with a few half inch screws so no glue was needed and its not going anywhere and should give a nice study base for me to hang the outer 1/4" plywood on.

Looking at the picture i realized my workspace is getting pretty dirty and cluttered, definately need to clean up a bit tommorrow
We looked at a bunch of various wood flooring samples at HDepot to get an idea of what we want the inset to be...they actually have some pergo floors that look like slate and other various rock...may be nice to get the look without the crazy additional weight....not sure what we plan to do on that yet.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Day 11 - Got the wine shelves set, thankfully SWMBO was around and able to help me hold them in place while i screwed them in from the side. I also put glue on the end and shot some finishing brads in. I didnt want to use screws from the inside of the cabinet if i didnt need to since it will be visible. They seem very sturdy considering they are held in with two screws, 2 nails and some glue. A bit of glue got on the joints but i dont care, this entire area will be stained and invisible unless you took a flashlight and shined it into the wine holes, so if the stain doesnt take up well in the back around the joints i wont care

Hope to duplicate this on the right side tommorrow and then see how far i can get to building the cabinet box for the front compartment.

 

[dfess1]

So here's a trick if your wife isn't around to help you out. Cut two pieces of scrap to the height dimension you want to use. Lay one on each face that the shelf will be screwed to, lay your shelf over it and tack it in. Pretty simple, and repeatable. Keep the scrap so that when you put the outside skin on, the shelf doesn't sag at all when you tack them in. Start at the bottom and work your way up your shelves.

 

[SmokeyMcBong]

great looking stuff brother. subscribed

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Another day, and i think im more or less complete with the interior, now i can work on getting the exterior sheet cut then all thats left is the top and some stain! The end is finally in sight, granted its still probably another 5-7 days of work but i think im past the half way point by now...we'll see how wrong i am.

Only thing i need to rectify is the front, the top of the front box measures 42 1/8" or so, and the bottom around 42 3/8" or so. Only issue is due to my decision to stack the interior all the way to the 2x4's, then put the flat sheets up against them that they(the left and right interior sheets) are now sandwiched in between and i have no wiggle room to pull the interior box they are attached too inward, because sadly most lumber from HD/Lowes isnt perfectly flat...i chose the ones that looked good to the naked eye but its hard to tell until you chop it up and put it together. In all honesty i am not sure how to go about fixing it quite yet, but ill need to come up with a solution so my cabinet doors are not mounted at a slight angle. One solution is to just not screw the box in on the right side(the seemingly problem side), and have a small 1/4" gap between the interior 1x8 and the interior plywood sheet for a bit towards the bottom, its the act of screwing in the 1x8 to the interior sheet thats pulling it outward since the sheet has no wiggle room, in fact that may be the solution because it will all be covered by the exterior anyways, i suppose in doing so I may lose a 1/4" on the inside of some of the wine storage but i dont really care about that as they are oversized @ 6x6x12"ish as is...Other than that all the wine spots are nice and solid with screws, nails and some glue holding them all suspended. Only had one stray brad shoot upward at a shallow angle a bit and bust through the top of one of the wine shelves, not going to bother with it just hammer it down a bit to keep it out of the way...again its hidden at the back of the pitch black wine box anyways. I'm not going for any construction awards here for the interior, the interior will be fully functional even with its minor unseen defects, the exterior is where i will not allow any screw ups even if it means i need to buy another $25 of wood.

Im only using screws on sides that will not be visible, anywhere that will be visible on the interior i am using 18 gauge brads, and they seem to be working fairly well so far. The same will happen for the exterior, only 18 gauge brads will be used to hang the 3 exterior sheets, although i reckon ill need a few more than i used to hang the interior. And i will be extra cognizant of getting the flattest sheet of the 1/4" plywood i can.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Not much to report the last few days. Spent one day getting the wood for the exterior and top, another night or two fixing some measurement mistakes and redoing a bunch on both sides to make them even, not sure why i didnt do it this way in the first place but w/e now its fixed.

Also we're still going through stain woes, we like the dark walnut but want it a bit darker, and multiple coats isnt getting us where we want since Oak plywood apparently stains lighter than regular oak. We really want an 'espresso" style finish to match the rest of our interior so i got some espresso stain from Varathane but even after two coats (one 5min, one 15 min) it is no where near as dark as the sample...gonna keep soaking it and hope to get it there! I have probably bought tiny jars for like 6-7 different stain types at this point!

The dark walnut looks dark until you have a light on, then it turns the lighter brown in the above picture from 1/19 when the flash went off. Im not too worried about the interior, it can be lighter but depending on what stain we use i may just put a few coats of the new color on the interior to darken it up.

 

[Stealthcruiser]

Got an old school hardware store nearby?
See if they have any "stove black", made for cast iron stoves, tint a few samples of stain, and try it on some scraps.
Black ink will work as well.
Then put your topcoat / sealer over that.
I'm guessin' you're going to use poly or the like?

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Yea, i hear there are tinted poly's as well maybe i should look into one of those....

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Life and other planned activities as well as general laziness and needing to plan better have slowed everything down.

I have come to the conclusion that i will probably divide the front into two separate cabinets. I am going to need two doors as it is with some type of center stile. This actually works out better in the end, because having two cabinets with adjustable shelves means we have more versatility in the shelves as we can mismatch the locations to better fit the infinite possibilities of glass sizes we seem to have acquired.

The original plan was to have one big 42" shelf, but ive started to realize doing research that pretty much all cabinets > 36" use center styles to support the cabinet from sagging, and im not entirely sure that a giant 42" shelf even if made out of oak when fully loaded wouldnt sag. I think it works better in the original because its only a ~5cuFt freezer(guesstimate based on holding 3 kegs), so the front is slightly shorter than my 7.1cuFt freezer which makes the shelf a bit long.

I tested a 1x8 with two peices of 1/4" oak plywood on either side and the shelf plugs don't touch, so this is good news.
We also decided to start with a 5" lip on the top of the front cabinet, the original didn't have to worry about this because he didnt have doors, but having doors as high as he mounted his cabinet is not really feasible and would look ridiculous. I *could* just lower the center cabinet top down 5 inches, but why bother, we may as well maintain that hidden few inches behind the front panel for larger objects, we can always stick really tall objects inward and up behind the front overhang.

I made a sketchup for the basic idea, without the wine holes drilled obviously...the brown part is the main slab used for the top, since ill probably also use 1x3's to make the lip and downward trim like the original we'll use some type of 3/4" wood flooring to fill in the center of the lid.

For those with experience putting keezers on carpet, how much clearance is realistic for the bottom shroud? I planned to leave 2" from the ground, more than enough to cover everything up using 3" wheels, i assumed after it was all loaded and on carpet it'd probably drop down 1/2" to 1" and leave enough room to actually be able to roll it around without snagging the outer shroud on the carpet.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Finally an update, got the top cut and one of the side panels cut, far from perfect but i dont think your average person will notice the flaws.

Accidentally cut the top wrong, i was a bit pissed because its like a $30 piece of wood, i accidentally put my straight edge on the wrong line when it with my saw so it ended up being 1.5" short of what i wanted, the good thing is that i was planning on 2 inches of overhang on each side, so this only lowers that to 1.25" of overhang for each side which is still fine.

I decided to do each side before doing the front, because they all require plunge cuts with my circular saw, which im a bit iffy about but works great now that i know what im doing, that way if i screw up something while learning that i have enough wood left to remake it...the front is so big it takes up a majority of one sheet of plywood...i tried just cutting a piece of scrap free hand with a jigsaw and realized that wasnt going to work...maybe for the original design who had trim to hide behind but i dont want to open up the cabinets and be reminded every time with some wavy ass jigsaw cut..it was that bad.
So i cut 99% of each side and finish the corners with the jigsaw to get the cut out. Cutting it with the circular saw on the floor with some foam insulation i bought is much easier, the wood is so big and floppy that trying to do a jigsaw cut long distance between two sawhorses just doesnt happen. Read about using the 2" foam insulation for cutting wood and man does it work great, way easier than setting up 2x4's as offsets, gives way more support on the wood and at 2" thickness gives me plenty of space to cut the wood cleanly and not saw into my concrete floor. Next step tomorrow is the other side and front.

Had a minor panic attack as i thought about the positioning on our wall, which is 97" long...thankfully the panel is cut such that i can hinge the door at the wall side so the door swings out to be parallel with the wall, instead of the other way which would block trying to get in it.

Overall the cabinet itself with top will be about 63" long and 32" deep...its a biggie. The height is higher than i expected, but its not a biggie as everything is still within easy reach after i did a quick fake mockup in my head of where the taps would be.

Sucks that when its all "done" im going to have to wait for over a month to get my cabinet doors, right now it looks like 25-30 business days to get custom cabinet doors...thats fine though im not ordering them until everything is done and its in my house working..no sense spending $100+ on cabinet doors that dont fit properly because i made some change along the way...which seems to happen on a daily basis.

Going to go with Hemlock corners and top edging, i like the look and it should give a decent contrast to the oak yet still stain a similar color..i dont really like how the cheap pine looks when its stained.

 

[dfess1]

what kind of fancy doors are you getting made for $100 a door??

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

what kind of fancy doors are you getting made for $100 a door??

No not 100 each lol, no way...just basic custom sized shaker doors in red oak...i only priced the front two and they were 65 something for both with the hinge slots cut...so im assuming the two smaller side doors will be around 35-40 total ...so 100-125ish for 4 doors...then a few more $$ for hinges and handles. We may upgrade from just basic shaker doors and add a bit of extra detail to them for a few extra $$ each, i havent gone through the pricing yet fully.

Got sick somehow, ended up leaving Superbowl party early because i felt like crap, turns out i had a 100 degree temperature...felt ok yesterday but today it kicked up to 101...ugh i just want to work on the damn bar but cant really stress my body with such a high fever.

 

[dfess1]

Got sick somehow, ended up leaving Superbowl party early because i felt like crap, turns out i had a 100 degree temperature..

That's ok, the wrong team won anyway...

Simple shaker door out of red oak? Shouldn't take long to make and should be pretty cheap as long as the place has stock on hand. I'd be surprised if it takes longer than 2 days to make.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

That's ok, the wrong team won anyway...

Simple shaker door out of red oak? Shouldn't take long to make and should be pretty cheap as long as the place has stock on hand. I'd be surprised if it takes longer than 2 days to make.

I think 25-30 business days is their lead time before they can even get to mine, they are a rather big cabinet company it seems, i may hunt around and see who else i can find...they were just the first ones to pop up on google and have online ordering and are only like a 45 minute drive. All the others require you to submit paperwork for a quote...

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Got the front cut and put on!

God i am glad thats over, by far the most stressful thing ive done so far...because there are so many measurements and cuts that need to be made and holes to drill that if even one of them is wrong by enough the entire thing is scrap...thankfully it all came out right on the first attempt after a few nights of measuring, and remeasuring. I probably measured and remeasured the cabinet holes a good 8 times because if the center bit didnt cover where my divider was it was scrap....and once it was cut the center divider is just over 1 1/8" wide so I had to handle it with care not to crack it.

I just propped up the corner molding against the corner to get an idea of the look and i like. It was scrap at HDepot, and unfortunately its like 2" short of what i actually need...not that it matters both front corner pieces will only be like $3.50 each.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Went and got another piece of 3/4" plywood, the one i had was just too bowed, i did some wetting and what not to try and flatten it out and its much better but the lid piece was accidentally cut 1.5" too short front to back, which is the offset of my circular saw because i accidentally cut from the wrong direction...so i just got a new one..ill use bits of this old lid for some other project like a cat play house thing or whatever...

The local store only sells small pint size jars of the color i need for some stupid reason, and online on Amazon the price is twice what it is in the store, why i dont understand... so since there's two pints in a quart anyways there's no point in buying online when i can just buy two more pint's locally for the same price as a quart online. Left the corners undone so that i can glue on the trim pieces properly.

Going to be gone until Sunday, but have Monday off and hope to get a lot done with the lid. Its actually quite a dark shade, but with the sunlight shining directly on it, it looks a bit lighter.

I want to do some research into Cabinet lights as well, i found these nice Rockler micro switches to turn the lights on when the cabinet is opened and off when its closed, but their like 20 something each and i cant tell if they can power some LED light bars or something i can hide up under the front shroud.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Got my new top cut, and its perfectly flat, good deal! After a ton of blunders getting the top on its finally on with 4" long 3/8 bolts counter sunk into the top.

I made a few mistakes along the way, first i for some reason thought it would be smart to drill the holes in the lid of the freezer without the wood to get them where i wanted them...problem was then trying to figure out where the hell i had to drill the holes in the wood to match up with those holes...ended up getting the freezer and wood lid in place, outlining the freezer door on the underside of the lid..taking it all off and laying it on the floor and lining it up, then drilling through my existing freezer lid holes to drill out the wood...worked perfectly once i had SWMBO help me align everything...getting 1 1/2" on all 4 sides is quite a chore by yourself...move one side aligned, other side is off..did that whole tango for an hour before i gave up and waited for her to get home. Once everything was done and bolted on the front left corner was only 2/32" off the front right corner...good enough!

Also dry fit all of my kegs and CO2 tank exactly how they will be and thankfully they all fit perfectly and the extra length on the bolts dont hit anything....

In total i have four 5 gallon kegs, a 2.5 gallon keg(for carbonated water for faux soda stream), 5# CO2 tank with double regulator and 4 way manifold.

Also i need to clean the freezer badly before i put it in service, seems i spilled some beer in it before i unplugged it and its pretty disgusting smelling inside.

 

[sablesurfer]

Looks really good for no carpentry skills. LOL. I have carpentry skills and my build is deliberately looking like it is all salvaged parts. Maybe, staining has cropped up in my thoughts a couple times. HAHA.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Looks really good for no carpentry skills. LOL. I have carpentry skills and my build is deliberately looking like it is all salvaged parts. Maybe, staining has cropped up in my thoughts a couple times. HAHA.

Ha i think having no skills doesnt impede the quality necessarily, but it definitely is impeding my speed Just like yesterday where putting the top on took most of the day because of the dumb decisions i made and having to go back and forth to the store many times. It came out alright, just took me 2-3 hours longer than it should have

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Got the top trim cut, decided to go with some Hemlock for the 1x3 trim pieces, i like the straight grain and it will offset all the rest of the thing being oak not to mention its like $7 cheaper(like 40%) than its oak equivilent and since i need so many 10 foot lengths it'll save me like 45-50 bucks. Got some liquid nails holding the front bit down...didnt realize it takes so long to cure...so going to have to spread getting the other ones down out over a few days....tomorrow i work on the downward top trim. We decided we were going to make them a flush corner rather than inset like the original design. I may do a round over bit with a router but probably not.

 

[dfess1]

how much of an over hang do you have between your trim and the top itself? I'd come in from underneath and sink some screws through the top up into the trim. Liquid nails doesn't always hold when moisture is involved.

How are you keeping your mitered corners together? Glue the joint? That's a pretty wide span to keep dead nuts flat. Either a pocket screw or a biscuit would help there.

 

[sablesurfer]

He needs a brad nailer and some filler putty is what he needs.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

how much of an over hang do you have between your trim and the top itself? I'd come in from underneath and sink some screws through the top up into the trim. Liquid nails doesn't always hold when moisture is involved.

How are you keeping your mitered corners together? Glue the joint? That's a pretty wide span to keep dead nuts flat. Either a pocket screw or a biscuit would help there.

I forgot to mention but yes i will be screwing in from the bottom. My overhang is only as wide as required for a vertical board to be flush with the top. Much like the original design i plan on screwing in an additional 1x1 below the lid and flush with the front, so that my vertical pieces have more surface for glue...so the stackup from top down is 1x3(horizontal top), 3/4" plywood top, 1x1 wood stub..ill buy some screws if i dont have them that will screw up through that properly without busting out the top.

After some research I'll likely go back to just using my gorilla wood glue to put the remaining bits down.

Not sure what you mean about flat with regards to the corners? All of the corners seem to match up pretty well with a minimal gap if any that i can fill in with putty as mentioned, although its going to be stained dark anyways so wont really even be noticeable to begin with.

Also i have a bunch of small dumbells that i put across the length to keep it down if thats what you mean by flat...the hemlock is also very straight so not much weight was needed if any.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Also forgot that i tried a method i stole from some woodworking video i saw on youtube awhile ago and it seems to work. Basically its just to sand the mitered corners a bit and rub some fine sawdust in the crack while the glue is in there setting...overall it seems to actually work pretty well. I may still need to use a filler but its looking like i might not. Once everything gets set ill go in there and blow around to see if it all just comes out or not.

Before

After

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Decided on a coffin top i think

It should be 24" long with taps 3" from the side and 4" from center between eachother. And 14" tall, putting the taps at around 12" which feels right. It will also be 10" deep or so. The depth felt right, i had to mock up a front with cardboard and move it back and forth to see what felt right..i couldnt really follow other peoples designs because i have an additional 8" in the front due to the cabinets that other most keezers dont.

In an effort to use wood i already have instead of buying more the plan is to use 3/4" plywood on the sides that i glue some of my extra 1/4" oak plywood onto as a veneer of sorts. The corners and top trim will be the same 1x3 Hemlock i used for the top. Inside of my box i plan to do a "Jester" style box with a big U shape cut made out of insulation foam...left fan sucks air up, right fan blows air back down.

 

[sablesurfer]

From that pic, looks like your tap handles will rise above the top of that portion. Will you ever be using that for active storage? Will anyone be putting stuff up there and taking stuff down on a regular/daily basis?

I ask because if no, and no one will ever be reaching over the tap handles then you will be fine.

But, if people are constantly reaching over them to get at something, I can see a lot of spilt beer as they bump the handles. If it is an active spot, I would move that whole tap bar down a bit.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Good question but no there's no reason someone would be putting stuff up there, the entire freezer is surrounded by giant 4 cabinet spaces for storing our glasses and what not and the counter top will more than adequate in size(60"ish long by 32"ish deep) to set drinks on if people are hanging out around it...it would be quite awkward to reach over and put something on top so i cant see why anyone ever would.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Slow progress, but progress none the less. Been busy with wedding planning and various trips we've had planned seemingly every weekend!

Got the coffin a good portion done, its slightly modified from my Sketchup, only in that i mounted an extra 3/4" of plywood behind the taps, which means i pulled the corner bits out 3/4" as well. This gives me a nice hidden lip all the way around the inside front of the coffin in which to hide my LED light strip.

This was the easiest way to use up the wood i have(and still have) and yet still hide the unseemly plywood edges and seams. Mounted a extra bit of oak painted with the blackboard paint. I'd prefer if it was totally smooth but i kind of like the subtle oak texture it has.

Im trying to figure out what i want to do with the back. Because the top inner plywood is "inset" and not laying on top of the coffin, i cant just hinge off the top. The back is not connected even if it appears so, its actually a piece of 3/4" plywood that sets between the left and right, with a piece of extra 1/4" oak plywood over it to make it more seamless looking. It'll still have some seams on the side back edge from the 1/4" oak but once its painted dark i don't think it will be noticeable. I think to hinge it i am just going to use the jigsaw to cut a big square out, leaving maybe 2" on all sides, hinge it from the top so that gravity keeps it (mostly) closed.

Next up is the top, im hoping to finish that tonight once we get back from our night out...then comes drilling of the lines.

 

[jekeane]

This all looks great! and tiring... really tiring I'm really getting swayed towards going upright looking at it. I'm sure it is going to be great when done though.