As you can see from the photos above, much progress has been made on the baby's room. Let's take a look at the latest addition...

The large storage area is 6 feet wide, 7.5 feet tall, and 24 inches deep. It is supposed to be easier to construct a built-in cabinet than a stand-alone unit, but comparison is based on some assumptions. For instance, that the floor, walls, and ceiling are straight and square (90 degree angles). One starts the process by framing the cabinet with 2x4's, which is slightly tricky because one has to make sure the front of the cabinet is plum (straight vertical). In my house, this was made more difficult by the following facts: My ceiling sags from right to left and back to front, so that the front left corner is almost 2 inches lower than the walls. It's difficult to measure exactly, because the floor is also sloped in the same way. The walls aren't exactly square, either. Following the 3-to-1 rule, what was at most a 2 hour framing job took me 6 hours. Being the first time, I didn't beat myself up too much about that.

After the framing was up, I used 1/4 inch sheets of birch plywood to cover the framing. I also added the left side, which is a solid 3/4 inch piece of birch plywood - leftover from the Day Seat (tm). This is where it is handy to have the cabinet 24 inches deep - the birch plywood sheets only need to be cut for length, not width.

Once the frame was constructed and covered, I installed the main shelves, two on the right side for the computer and upper cabinet and one on the left, separating the upper cabinet from the lower drawers.

Building the drawers was pretty simple after my previous experience with the Day Seat. Because I was not satisfied with the interior finish of the Day Seat drawers (normal plywood), I went with all-birch wood on the drawers. That is, 3/4 inch for the sides, back, and fronts, and 1/4 inch for the bottoms. I used the router for the drawer grooves, and butt-jointed the corners (the fronts are screwed from the inside). Because the birch plywood is exactly 1/4 inch, maybe slightly larger, it fits very snuggly into the 1/4 inch router groove, obviating the need for wood glue and making for an sturdy, square drawer. I used screws instead of nails for the butt joints, which also makes for a very tight construction. And, the birch looks great. The only problem is that each drawer weighs about 40 pounds, so they aren't too easy to haul around. It also costs more (total cost for this project is about $300, but a carpenter would charge about 2 grand).

The drawers are huge, and have tremendous volume. Each is about 11 inches high, 32 inches wide, and 22 inches deep. That's a lot of drawer! There are 4.

The upper cabinets need some sort of organization, but I haven't decided on exactly what, yet. I could install a bar for hanging clothes, or I could use a combination of shelves to get the maximum amount of storage. I was originally going to install doors, however I realized that the left side can't have that because of the ceiling fan. Thus, sliding doors are more likely. On the right side, I will probably use swinging doors, as long as everything matches sufficiently.

As it is, it is usable (I'm typing at the computer desk now). I still have finish work to do, installing 1.5 inch molding around the edges to cover the edges of the 2x4s. And some sort of sealer or stain will be required to preserve the look. But for now, I can focus on the 4th and final corner of the room, which requires work: