12 Drawer Dresser Reveal

After getting all the drawer pulls and drawer faces sanded and finished, it was time to attach them to the drawer boxes. To do that, I used a trick to allow you to space everything all nice and neat. Starting at the bottom and using shims that I cut from scraps, I set the bottom row of faces in place. Prior to that, I had drilled holes in them that match the holes also drilled into the back of the drawer pulls. So with the drawer faces in place, I sent some screws through them into the drawer body using those predrilled holes for the drawer pulls. This holds the drawer face firmly in place until I can pull out the drawer and fasten the drawer face to the drawer from the inside of every drawer. I can then repeat this process for each row working my way up to the top of the dresser making sure to use the shims so the spacing looking nice.

One detail you may or may not have noticed is that the drawers are grain matched from side to side. I used a single board for each row and kept the pieces in order and in the correct orientation so that the grain appears to flow from one column to the next throughout the entire row of drawers. The four boards I selected, I did so trying to keep the coloring and grain flow similar so it all looks like they were always together in the tree. It is a little detail but once noticed, makes for a big impact on the overall project I think.

After taking this picture, I was able to remove all the screws since they were no longer needed and then I drilled all of the holes out clear through the front of the drawer box. Once again opening the drawers, I could counter sink those holes from the inside and then put screws through the holes now going the opposite way that are long enough to thread into the back of all the drawer pulls. Now I have four screws holding the drawer face to the drawer box and two screws holding the drawer pull to the drawer face to the drawer box so it is all quite solid and space out perfectly. It requires no special tools other than some correctly cut shims and a drill. 

After that, all that was left to do was to sweep up the wood shavings from all my drilling on the inside of every drawer and add my maker's medallion on the back so future archeologists will know who built this piece of furniture. Tomorrow we will move this one in place and move our old dresser out to the garage where I will attempt to price it to move quickly using Marketplace. My wife will be stuffing all her belonging into all twelve drawers. Yes, you heard that right. I built this piece of furniture and not a single drawer will be for my use. But then I am retired and don't really have a professional wardrobe these days so I really don't mind that fact. Happy wife equals happy life!