How to Build a Wood Wall Unit

Nearly everyone needs at least one wall unit somewhere in his or her home. It may go in the living room, displaying some of your finest possessions, or it may end up in the basement, storing garden chemicals.

Here is a design that will look good and serve well in any venue. It all depends upon the materials you choose and the way you finish them off. For the basement, ordinary fir plywood will fill the bill. For a kid's room, pine plywood or painted particleboard are good. For the living room, solid hardwoods or one of the fine hardwood plywoods can produce a sleek European look. Whatever materials you use, the construction is the same: Simple, fast and straightforward. I'll explain how it goes, working with pine to produce a unit for a child's room. Then I'll show you a few tricks to dress things up for a more formal look. Dimensions are up to you, but a unit about 7 feet high by 3 feet wide looks good, makes good use of materials and fits well into rooms with the usual 8-foot ceiling. My example will be that size. To start, buy two pieces of 1-by-12 pine, 8 feet long, for the sides of the unit. Another piece 12 feet long will give you the top and bottom, plus two shelves. A second 12-footer will give you four more shelves. You'll also need a sheet of half-inch plywood for the back. If you can get it, pine plywood will look and finish better. If not, use ordinary A-C fir.

What else? Some 2-inch, no. 8 flathead screws, some 2-inch finishing nails and some yellow glue. Get Phillips head screws if possible. They are the easiest type to work with. The sides. Cut the two 8-foot pieces of pine down to 84 inches long. These are the sides of the wall unit. Cut one of the 12-footers into four pieces 34 1/2 inches long. These are the top and bottom, plus a couple of shelves.

Next, assemble sides, top and bottom using the screws and glue. Use simple butt joints, and be sure to set the top and bottom inside the two sides. Predrill for the screws. Best way to do this is with a special bit that drills, countersinks and counter-bores all in one operation. If you don't have one, you can buy it at any hardware store for just a few bucks. Make sure to get the size that fits your screws (2-inch no. 8).

Predrill deep enough so the screw heads will set about G-inch below the surface of your work. Later you can cover over the heads with wooden plugs or dowels. Assemble the parts so the cabinet ends up lying face down. Then you'll be ready for the next step. The back. When the frame of the cabinet is assembled, it will no doubt seem flimsy, and it will probably be somewhat out of square. Installing the back will solve both of these problems.

To install the back, measure the inside dimensions of the frame you have built, and cut the plywood to those exact dimensions. Now glue the back inside the frame, flush with its back edge, and secure it with 2-inch finishing nails. This will firm things up and - if you have cut the back accurately - it will also pull everything up nice and square. The shelves. Now for the shelves. Make as many as you like, using more 1-by-12 pine. You'll have to rip a half-inch off the edges of these shelves to make up for the thickness of the back.

You can screw the shelves in place, or use an adjustable system. I like to screw in a permanent center shelf to further reinforce the unit and then put all the other shelves on adjustable hardware. To do the adjustable system, buy shelf support hardware and drill a series of evenly spaced holes, 1/2-inch deep, to accept them. Easiest way to do this is to make a guide strip from a length of 1-by-2 pine. Drill a series of holes spaced every 2 inches down the center of this strip; then use this as a guide, drilling through each hole near the front and rear edges of both sides of the cabinet. To control hole depth, make an automatic stop by drilling lengthwise through a piece of 1-by-1 about 2 inches long. After drilling though it, cut it off so the end of the bit will stick out exactly 1g inches. Then drill all your holes (through the guide strip) with this stop in place on the bit.

Finishing touches. Cover all screw heads with lengths of dowel. Shave these down flush. Fill over the finishing nailheads with wood dough, and sand everything with 120-grit paper. Finish to your taste. It's easy to dress up this basic design. Nailing on a few simple moldings like a crown around the top and a base molding around the bottom can give a different look. You can build a hutch by making the bottom half of the cabinet deeper. Just glue 1-by-4 stock to the front edges of the sides, running them up to a height of about 3 feet. Glue up a wide shelf and glue and screw it in place atop these extensions. Add a pair of doors if you like. It's your cabinet.