One Room Challenge: Week 2 - Building The Base Cabinets

Today marks week 2 of the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge and I am so excited to be a guest participant! Be sure to follow me on Instagram @robynjohanna_ to catch the behind the scenes on stories.

WHAT IS THE ONE ROOM CHALLENGE?

The One Room Challenge (ORC) is a biannual design event that challenges participants to transform a room in eight weeks and share the process along the way. Each round, twenty design influencers are selected as ‘Feature Designers’ and anyone is welcome to join as a guest participant. The ORC is not a competition, rather it is a community celebrating creativity and design.

WEEK 1 RECAP

Before we dive into this week’s update, let’s recap the design plan for our home office.

Here’s the mood board:

Here’s what you can expect over the next 8 weeks:

Built-in T-shaped Desk
- Build 3 Cabinets with Drawers
- Build 3 Cabinets with Shelves
- Prime + Paint Cabinets
- Order Drawer Fronts + Doors
- Prime + Paint Drawer Fronts + Doors
- Attach Drawer Fronts + Doors
- Attached Hardware
- Build Desktop
- Sand + Stain + Poly Desktop

Faux Shiplap
- RIP Hardboard to Size
- Prime + Paint
- Install

Floating Shelf
- Build Floating Shelf
- Install

Potential Slat Wall
- Cut Slats
- Sand + Stain
- Install

Potential Ceiling Treatment (if my idea works on a suspended ceiling)
Put Together Reading Corner
Assemble + Style Open Bookshelf
Wall Art

THE BUILT-INS

As I mentioned last week, this space is about to be the biggest DIY project I’ve ever taken on. My plan is quite ambitious! I’m building an entire build-in t-shaped desk (which I’ve never done).

Here’s my vision for the build-ins:

I’ve decided to build the cabinet boxes out of MDF, since the cabinets are going to be painted white and MDF is half the cost of plywood. I have my heart set on white oak for the desktop, so saving $50 a sheet by going with MDF will give me more room in the budget for that white oak. Fingers crossed I can find some!

THE PLANNING

OKAY, there’s no way I could write this update without acknowledging how much planning went into designing this built in!

I spent weeks leading up to the ORC kickoff designing and planning this bad boys. Weeks of measuring, googling, you-tubing, teaching myself SketchUp, space planning, source planning, sketching by hand, making cut lists, calculating and measuring some more!

It was an exciting day when I had my final design, complete with measurements and cut lists, on paper!

THE PROGRESS

My goal this week was to complete all the lower cabinet boxes and I was right on track… until… I ran out of pocket hole screws. In the next day or two, when I pick up some more screws, I’ll have that last cabinet assembled!

Here’s a few shots of them sitting in place! I will be removing the baseboards and securing them to the wall once they are primed and painted.

Ahhh! I made those, you guys. Now to tackle drawer boxes.

HOW TO USE A CIRCULAR SAW FOR LONG CUTS

I wanted to use a circular saw for this build because:

I don’t own a table saw, nor can I safely rip 4 x 8 sheets of MDF on a table saw by myself.
Circular saws are usually less of an investment than a table saw and I wanted to eliminate the cost of table saw being a barrier to building.

So, here we go! Here’s how you can rip a 4 x 8 sheet using a circular saw.

Step 1 – Measure from your saw blade to the outside of the plate. (mine is 1 ¼”)

Step 2 – Minus your measurement in step 1 from your total measurement and make a mark.

For example: I needed a piece of MDF 29 ¼” wide, so 29 ¼” – 1 ¼” = 28”

Step 3 – Lay sheet on top of 3 – 2 x 4’s. Line up a straight edge (I’m using a leftover piece of baseboard) with your mark and clamp down. Make sure the board and the clamps are on the inside (between your mark and the side you measured).

Step 4 – Measure from the straight edge to the edge of the sheet on both the top and bottom. Ensure both measurements are exactly the same. Adjust if necessary.

Step 5 – Place your saw plate directly against your straight edge. Pull the trigger and guide your saw along the straight edge.

That’s it, that’s all! I hope that was helpful!

Thanks for being here with me. I’ll catch you next week with some drawer box (and maybe even some desktop) progress! Until then you can find me sharing the behind the scenes on instagram.