How to make a built-in furniture

In many apartments the old, still Soviet manufacture, long gone out of fashion furniture, outdated physically and morally, cluttering up space and so absolutely small premises was kept. However, at the same time it should be noted that most of the material from which it is made, has retained a good quality, and it can be used to build modern versions of cabinets and bookshelves.

If you recall the furniture walls with numerous cupboards, drawers and lockers, you can easily imagine how many panels of different sizes can be obtained in order to produce more compact, comfortable and modern pieces of furniture. How to make built-in furniture in a modern design, spending a minimum of money on it, and at the same time to free rooms from bulky, obsolete designs and will be discussed further.

Advantages of the built-in furniture

Before proceeding to the next sections, it is desirable to understand what advantages are built-in furniture made by yourself.

• If the furniture is made of material that will be obtained as a result of dismantling old cabinets or other pieces of furniture, you can get a significant savings in the family budget.
• Everyone knows that even in panel houses, walls often do not differ in perfect evenness. Well, with the help of built-in furniture, you can perfectly disguise this flaw, and, again, save on construction work on leveling the surfaces.
• Owners are given an excellent opportunity to show their creativity in the development of the project, and then reproduce their own design and engineering solution, making the most comfortable for using a piece of furniture.
• Achieves a serious saving of the useful area of ​​the room. Almost every apartment has areas in which it is difficult to write standard pieces of furniture, and for those products that will be made to order, you will have to pay a double price. Developing your own project, you can provide for all the nuances and sizes of the area where the cabinet or shelf will be built.
• Well, of course, the furniture made by himself will give reason to be quite proud of his amateur talents.

Materials for the manufacture of built-in furniture

In addition to chipboard panels, inherited from the dismantled cabinets, other materials can be used for the manufacture of furniture items.

• Today gypsum board is extremely popular, from which not only built-in wardrobes are built, but even entire walls with niches and wardrobes for one or even two rooms. This material has gained such wide distribution due to the simplicity of its processing and the availability of editing, which even novice masters who have no experience can carry out. Attracts also its low price and ecological cleanliness.

Try to innovate in the interior of the room with plasterboard!

How to work with this material, quickly and easily creating various designs, you can learn from a special publication of our portal dedicated to the independent construction of gypsum plasterboard walls and partitions .

• Natural wood is traditionally an excellent material for furniture production. Old masters managed to build cabinets without a single nail, and some of these pieces of furniture, made at the beginning of the last century, are still used. Wood has many very important advantages over other materials - it is ecological purity, natural natural pattern and relief, easy handling and aesthetic appearance.

• Plywood is another material from which you can also make built-in furniture. Often it is used in conjunction with wood, sheathed plywood carcasses and making panels. The process of manufacturing plywood involves the use of glue, so it can not be called 100% environmentally friendly material, although there are grades with a minimal, almost zero emission of phenol-containing substances.

• chipboard - a plate made from sawdust and shavings, which are mixed with the glue, followed by giving the desired shape by pressing. Then the plates are given an aesthetic appearance by laminating or veneering. Such plates can be harmless to health or dangerous, depending on the glue that was used in their manufacture. Soviet furniture most often consists of plates produced under GOST under strict control, so it can be called relatively safe compared to modern products of completely unknown origin. If furniture boards are purchased in the store, it is worth paying attention to the group of environmental safety - for living rooms you need E0 or E1.

• . In addition to materials for furniture production, it is necessary to choose a suitable modern fittings - handles, locks, canopies, guides, rollers, hangers, etc. Problems with these furniture accessories will not be, as today they can be found in specialized hardware stores for any request and taste.

Where can I install the built-in furniture?

Built-in furniture is an excellent way out of the situation in small or one-room apartments. It can be fixed, as already mentioned above, near the walls, which were never used to install cabinets along them. In addition, it fits perfectly into a wall that has a small surface area and is too small to install a standard cabinet. These areas of the rooms are mainly external walls, with window openings in them, and internal - with a central door frame.

The wall around the window is usually tried to be closed with curtains, without even thinking that it can be functional - this is how the overwhelming majority of apartment owners act. However, if on its surface to fix a complex of shelves, which has a small depth, sufficient for the placement of books, the design does not put the same curtains and cornices. They can easily be fixed not only on the ceiling, but also on the panels of the upper shelves. Having established such a design, you can immediately see what area of ​​the room will be freed from the cabinets, and plan it for other needs.

This wall of the room can be used only if it is absolutely dry, without the appearance of mold formations, otherwise the pathogenic microflora will quickly move to books, and its spores will hang in the air of the rooms, which is quite dangerous for human health.

Paper is an excellent insulation material, and books placed on racks tightly to each other will create a kind of heat-insulating barrier, so the room will become warmer.

Another common option for installing built-in cabinets is the area of ​​walls around the interior or entrance doors. Fixing furniture in this way, you can solve two problems - space saving and additional room soundproofing.

Sizing and Drawing

If you choose the location where the cabinet or racks will be installed, you can start planning the location of the shelves and doors. The process of manufacturing a sketch and a drawing with exact dimensions can be done with the help of special applications - they can be found on the pages of the Internet. In the event that this path seems complicated, then a regular piece of paper, a pencil, a ruler will do.

The first option of calculation will be more accurate, as the program will calculate not only all the parameters of the cabinet, but also the quantity and even the approximate cost of parts and fittings.

Video: an example of designing a built-in cabinet using a specialized application

The self-planning method helps to understand all the nuances right on the spot, enabling you to immediately make the necessary adjustments. But the drawing will have to be carefully worked out, since all the necessary details will be made on it. Special care in drawing up the scheme will be required if the parts will be manufactured according to it in order, in the workshop.

If a piece of built-in furniture is built of chipboard, plywood or a massive board, having approximately the same thickness, then the drawing for them is made equally. In the case of using plasterboard for the cabinet or shelves, calculations are made taking into account the width of the metal profiles from which the frame will be mounted, since the narrowest of them is 50 mm wide and 27 mm deep.

Built-in closet with rear panel

Such a cabinet can be made of chipboard, plywood or a massive board with a thickness of 16 mm. Built-in furniture is equipped with a back panel that covers the wall surface, or as an internal wall itself serves as it.

This cabinet model has a height of 2600 mm, a width of 2400 mm and a depth of 650 mm. In this design, the rear panel is provided, but it is quite possible and simple to fix the cabinet to the wall.

Details for assembling the

cabinet For such a cabinet, the following parts will need to be manufactured:

Part name	Part dimension, mm	Number of parts, pcs.
Length	Width	Height
Side walls	2584	650	2
Internal vertical partitions	2568	550	2
Base panel	2068	650	1
Ceiling panel with rounded corner	2584	650	1
Vertical outboard panel	2600	308	1
Horizontal side shelves with rounded corner	634	285	3
Drawers	2568	586	220	3
Lower horizontal shelves	650	400	1
800	400	1
Top horizontal shelves	650	550	1
800	550	1
Horizontal shelves above drawers	550	586	5
Rear panels, made of plywood or fiberboard( 5 mm thick)	2600	665	1
2600	816	1
2600	610	1
Door panels-coupe	2600	694	1
2560	669	2
Set of rollers	2 sets
Guide rails for drawers	550	6 pairs
Shelf holders	44
Metal tubes 15 mm in diameter	816	1
665	1
Drawer parts:
Front and rear walls	586	220	6
Side walls	518	220	6
Bottom panel( plywood or fiberboard)	586	550	3
Guides for sliding doorswith two lines of runners for movement	2068	50	Set( upper and lower)

Production of parts

Manufacturing of parts for any furniture design is a complicated and laborious process that requires not only highochnosti, some skill and increased accuracy, but also the availability of specialized tools for working on workpieces.

	The first step in the place where the cabinet will be located, on its level is exposed its bottom part. Unfortunately, the floors do not always turn out to be even, therefore, if necessary, small wooden pads are installed under one or two corners. In this case, it is desirable to immediately fix the exposed bottom of the cabinet to the floor surface.
	You can, of course, fix the adjustable legs in the corners and in the middle part of the bottom panel, but this is done if the differences in height are very significant. In addition, you need to take into account the height of the cabinet. If it is close to the height of the ceiling, the legs for the construction will not work, and you will have to use wooden pads. The front face of the floor panel must be pasted with PVC edge.
	Further, after marking, on the vertical panels of the cabinet it is necessary to prepare holes for the installation of shelf holders, if they are removable, or for furniture corners, if the shelves are fixed permanently. The last mounting method will make the design more rigid.
	Another way to secure the shelves on the vertical panels of the cabinet is the use of eccentric screws. This fastener is more accurate and almost hidden from the eyes, but it is more difficult to drill holes for it, since it requires perfect accuracy.
	In addition, along the drawn lines on the walls, runners for drawers are fixed.
	If a wall outlet or switch is mounted on the wall near which the cabinet will be installed, and it will be covered from the panels of the cabinet, then holes are cut and drilled with the help of a drill or jigsaw of the desired size and shape.
	The next step is the installation of lines marked on the bottom panel of vertical walls. They will have to be temporarily supported on the sides, since they can not be kept only on the lower brackets. To hold them in the desired vertical position, several horizontal transverse shelves should be fastened without special delay. Since in this design there are side-curved shelves, for their fastening it is necessary to connect the extreme vertical panel and the board adjacent to the wall at a right angle. The board is fixed to the outer side wall by means of eccentric screws on the rear side of the structure.
	Having fastened two vertical panels at right angles, immediately install the side shelves. They are mounted on the side vertical wall of the cabinet using dowels mounted on the glue, and on the wall panel - with the help of confirmations( Euro screws), which are screwed from the rear of the panel.
	Then, the top panel-roof of the cabinet is installed and fixed - it is most often mounted with eccentrics. If the top panel is raised under the ceiling, then through it you can fix the cabinet and the ceiling.
	Another way to secure the top panel, as well as horizontal shelves on vertical partitions, can be furniture corners. After installing the top panel, all other shelves and barbells for the hangers are fixed.
	Further, three drawers are manufactured according to the dimensions indicated in the table. For more accurate joining of the corners of the elements of the box, at their edges can be selected quarters. Drawers can have one front panel or two - internal and front. When installing the dual front panel, the drawer handle will hold more firmly. Slotted slots are cut into the bottom of the side, front and back sides, into which the bottom of the drawer will slide in.
	Therefore, the assembly proceeds as follows: - first the front and side panels of the box are fastened; - then the bottom is inserted into their grooves; - and only then the back panel is installed on the glue, which is additionally fixed with furniture screws. Here it should be noted that it is possible to use ready-made crates of the dismantled furniture wall, replacing only the front panel on them. In this case, when compiling a project, you must immediately take into account all of their parameters.
	On the side walls of the drawers, the second part of the roller guide system must be fixed using self-tapping screws.
	The guides can be fixed in the lower or middle part of the side panel. In order not to err in the correctness of their fastening, you need to sample the boxes in the cabinet walls, relying on the dimensions given in the drawing.
	Next, for the drawers are selected handles. For them, through holes in the centers of the front panels are drilled, and then the handles are screwed from inside the box.
	The next step is to install the guides for the door-coupe. In the presented model three door wings are provided: - medium, installed on the first line of the rails, and having the ability to move to either side of the cabinet; - two side doors, each of which can be opened, reaching the other along the second line of the guides.
	The markings fix the upper rail for the movement of the flaps on the ceiling panel of the cabinet, and then the lower rail on the floor panel. Further, spring-loaded rollers are attached to the doors, allowing easy installation of the flaps into the fixed guide rails.
Illustration	Brief description of the operation

Illustration	Brief description of the operation
	The first step is the marking of the chipboard panels with the transfer of dimensions to them from the draft drawing and plotting the sawing lines. Next, all the details of the cabinet are cut. It should be noted that if the saw is made by hand hacksaw, then it will take a lot of time and effort. Therefore, the work will go faster and more accurately if it is carried out using an electric circular saw or, at least, a jigsaw. To make the edge smooth, without burrs, the cut must be made with a saw with fine teeth. In addition, along the edge of the sawing line it is recommended to paste a paint tape that will protect the laminated edge from chips. If the edges are still not quite flat, they need to be trimmed with a file, a rasp or a plane. If you want to get a perfectly flat edge of parts or the model has rounded corners and other local configurations, then it's better to go to the workshop where there is special equipment on which the exact cutting of all shapes is made, up to a millimeter.
	If the furniture will be made from panels obtained as a result of dismantling the old wall, and the height of the panels will not be enough to build the planned project, they will have to be increased.
	Single sheets can be joined in different ways - a "groove-spike", using dowels or using a special docking bar into which two separate parts of the panel are placed on the glue on both sides. The last method of connection is the simplest, and is available even for an inexperienced master.
	In this cabinet model shelves having a rounded corner are designed. To cut it beautifully, it is necessary to draw a local cut line using a construction or improvised compass. When sawing rounded corners use a jig saw, showing special care.
	Sawed parts are numbered and signed. If there is an appropriate tool, all the edges of the parts are cleanly milled. Then the finished parts are installed to the wall, following a certain sequence to simplify the search for the desired structural element.
	The outer edges of the panels are glued with specially designed PVC edges for this purpose. The fastening of the edge on the butt is made with the help of a layer of glue applied on them, which begins to show its adhesion qualities after heating. To do this, the edge is applied to the end of the panel and smoothed with a heated iron. After the panels have been processed and ready for assembly, marking out the connection points with other parts as well as securing the fittings is made on them.

After the manufacture of all parts, their processing and marking, the cabinet is assembled in accordance with the drawing.

If the cabinet or rack has a back panel that will give the product additional rigidity, then after connecting all the elements of the structure to it from the rear side, the rear wall sheets are fastened to the ends of the panels, which are most often made of fiberboard or plywood with a thickness of 3 ÷ 5mm. If the back wall is not planned, then the frame of the cabinet will have to be fixed to the wall.

The presented cabinet can be assembled in different ways, and which one to choose is decided by the master himself. Much in this case depends on the quality of the wall. To understand how the assembly is carried out, both mounting options will be considered below.

Assembling the cabinet with the rear panel

Assembling the cabinet, fastened with the rear panel, occurs in this order:

If desired, or if necessary, the design can be fixed not only to the floor and ceiling, but also to the wall throughadjacent to it the side panel of the cabinet from the inside of the structure.

About installation of the door-compartment was said in passing. But this is an extremely important point, which requires a thorough consideration. It is simply more expedient to send the reader to a detailed specialized instruction.

How do I assemble and install the doors for the closet?

For such elements of furniture in shops are sold special accessories. A very detailed illustrated instruction on the self-assembly and adjustment of doors for the sliding door wardrobe is in the special publication of our portal.

Built-in cabinet fastened directly to the wall

This section of the article will discuss how to secure the same cabinet( or any other) to the wall, without using the rear panel. As already mentioned above, this option is perfect for hiding the uneven walls of the room.

Parts for cabinets are manufactured and processed in the same way as in the previous version or when choosing a different model. Their list and dimensions also remain unchanged, with the exception of the rear panel.

The list of materials can be filled with metal corners, with which the walls of the cabinet will be fixed to the wall, or a beam that can replace the corners and serve as a wall frame. It should be noted that if the shelves of the cabinet are open, then it is better to use metal corners or profile for fixing - these elements look more aesthetic than the bar.

To understand how such an installation is carried out, it is necessary to consider its variants in more detail.

The first option is a prefabricated panel structure

This cabinet can be both open and closed with sliding doors. The installation of the shelves in this case occurs with the help of metal corners. The installation works are done in the following order:

• The first step is the design of the cabinet with those compartments that will be needed - these can be bookshelves, a wardrobe or boxes designed for other needs. The project takes real dimensions on a smaller scale - this is necessary in order not to be mistaken in the width or height of the location of certain details. Moreover, it is better to make two copies of the project - on one of them to put the dimensions of the arrangement of parts on the wall, and on the other - the parameters of the structural elements themselves.
• Next, with a copy of the project, which shows how and where the vertical walls, as well as the upper and lower panels, will be fixed first( if they are provided), the places of their fixation are transferred to the wall. They need to be determined by drawing accurate vertical lines - on a plumb line.
• The first floor is fixed to the floor panel of the cabinet, on which you can fix the vertical partitions.
• Then, in the places of drawn lines, the verticality of the wall plane is determined. To do this, it is necessary to prepare a perfectly level beam measuring about 50 × 50 mm in size and almost the same length as the ceiling of the room, and a building level, or a level that is at least 2500 mm long.

To the wall, a specified level is added to the wall, and with it the difference in surface differences is determined. If it is about 3 mm, it will not have a big impact on the installation of the panels - if a small gap is formed, then with the built-in version of the cabinet it will be almost invisible.

• In case the wall even visually looks uneven, there are two possibilities to hide this flaw - to level the wall with plaster or plasterboard, or to fit the side panel furniture panels to the wall. Fit to be done gradually, cutting off from the panel the part that prevents it from completely pressing against the wall. Therefore, its side, which will be adjacent to the wall, will become uneven, but the cutting edge will ideally be leveled.
• If the cabinet is mounted between two walls, then you can completely abandon the extreme vertical panels, installing only internal partitions.
• When the vertical panels are fitted to the wall, they should be immediately secured to their intended location so that the horizontal shelves, the ceiling and floor front bar can be started. To fix the vertical panels on them in three or four places, on both sides, metal corners are screwed. Then, the panel is leveled in relation to the walls, and holes are placed through the holes in the corners to drill holes into which the dowel will be hammered in and fasteners fastened.
• Further, if it is planned to be installed on the built-in closet of the door-compartment, then on the ceiling and the floor or the bottom panel, beams or slats parallel to each other defining the width of the internal space are marked and fastened to fix the guide rails for the passage of the leaflets.

• The next step, between vertical inner partitions and walls, according to the drawing, is the layout of the horizontal shelves. They, just like in the previous version of the cabinet, are fixed on the furniture corners to vertical panels and walls. The horizontal shelves will tie the whole structure, fix it to the walls and give it rigidity.

• Next, the barbells for the hangers are mounted, the skids for the boxes, if any, are constructed by the size of the project, the boxes themselves and installed in place.
• The final stage is the work on assembling and installing the door-coupe.

The second option - with the frame from the beam

This design is used to build a built-in closet most often, since it is easiest to work with.

For its construction, a frame is first constructed from the wooden beam along the wall markings, which immediately determines the dimensions of the cabinet, that is, its height, width and depth. When these values ​​are known, it is easier to continue the process of securing the remaining elements of the cabinet and its skin with one of the selected materials.

A rugged wooden frame can be sheathed not only with chipboard, but also with plywood, wood or laminated boards, as well as with PVC panels. This criterion is chosen by the domestic master himself, taking into account financial possibilities, design ideas and experience level with this or that material.

It is much easier to fasten both the corners and panels to the wooden beam, so the work after the construction of the frame will go quite quickly. Marking of horizontal shelves occurs in the same way as in previous versions, and vertical partitions usually always form a bar. Due to the more robust design, such cabinets can be equipped not only with sliding doors, but also with hinged ones - in some cases the second option is preferable to the first one.

The third option - with aluminum profiles

The installation of the built-in cabinet according to this technology can also be made independently, if it turns out to produce all the necessary details for the design. An important condition when choosing the presented variant of the cabinet construction is that it can be installed only between two walls, that is, in a rather narrow room, but its entire width.

With this approach, the

de for fixing the panels to the wall is used an aluminum U-shaped profile having a gap width between the shelves is 1 ÷ 2 mm larger than the thickness of the chipboard panels from which all other elements of the cabinet are made. In the presented model, the width of the profile is 16 mm, with a panel thickness of 15 mm.

The panels are neatly installed in the profile, and often do not require any additional fastening. In those places where the shelves will have a higher load, the profile from below is further strengthened by a small chipboard panel.

The cabinet installation works in the same sequence as when starting any assembly that is fixed to the wall:

• Drawing up the project.
• Manufacture of cabinet parts.
• Marking of the wall surface with a plumb line, level, ruler and roulette.
• Fastening to the wall by marking the metal profile.
• Flooring and fixing of the floor panel and screwing profiles to it for the installation of vertical panels.
• Mounting of vertical partitions - they slide into the profile fixed on the wall and on the floor panel.
• Next, a fitting of the upper horizontal panel is done, and the location of the vertical partitions is marked on it. Then, it is removed, and the profiles are also screwed to it, which will hold the partitions in the upper part of them. After that, the top panel is installed permanently.

• Then, in the same way, all other horizontal shelves are mounted. They are installed in profiles, which are fixed on the wall and to vertical panels. When the horizontal shelves are fixed, the structure will become more rigid and durable.
• If the project includes the installation of drawers, then they must be installed between two panels of the chipboard, since without support on both sides can not withstand the load. Therefore, when designing this must be taken into account.

• sliding door-coupe. In the example of the construction, door-coupes are planned, therefore two-way guides are fixed for them on the ceiling and the bottom of the cabinet to move them, since both doors must move to one side and the other.
• The last step is to mount the movable door wings, and the test is carried out.

At the end of the publication - another clear example of a high-quality assembly of the built-in cabinet:

Video: assembly of the built-in sliding-door wardrobe without the rear wall

So, with the necessary tools to assemble the built-in furniture with your own hand - it's quite feasible. It is much more difficult to see a qualitative manufacturing of all the details of the structure. It is best to conduct this process with professional tools that will not be found in every home. Therefore, after completing and thoroughly checking the drawing, having all the necessary materials, it is better to order their cutting and processing in a carpentry workshop - it will be much faster and more accurate. And with quality, well-adjusted parts, the installation process becomes a real pleasure.