Drawers under my workbench - Critique my layout

[cjarvis]

While I have plenty of cabinet space, I have a dearth of drawer space in my shop.

I have an old 3'x7' door that I turned into a workbench top and supported with 4x4 legs on casters that I want to build storage under. I have a pretty good idea what I want to do but I'd like to see what you have and how it works for you before finalizing my plans. The 64" is a hard number. I might be able to increase the height to 24" without too much modification.

Here's what I'm planning on doing; Let me know what you think.

 

[nadogail]

Your plans look good to me.

 

[RivennHewn]

Drawer bottoms of the 32” drawers would be my only concern.

May want to use thicker material, depending on what is going to in them.

 

[coljar]

I also think what you've drawn out looks good.

 

[tarmy]

Looks good...here are a couple of mine...

 

[Craig Balzer]

It all depends what you are storing in the drawers.
The bottom ones are so deep that items will likely end up stacked on each other.
I'd be inclined to go with more shallower drawers but like I said it all depends what you are storing in the drawers (and how heavy the items are).

 

[Renegade1LI]

Here's what I did a mix of drawers & cabinets,nothing fancy, again depends on your needs, I tried to break it up so if I move stuff around I have options. Keeping the drawers to 6" worked for me & adding the toe kick drawers used up dead space. I used 1/2" form ply, similar to baltic birch & no problem going 36 x 24, wood slides with uhmw tape to slide on, kept it cheap & simple.

 

[jake28]

Purely for aesthetics:
With your current dimensions:
I’d go 3x 32x4” across the center section.
And a whole row of 16” x 9” across the bottom

An alternative:
Work off of multiples of 4” heights.
4” top drawer
6” middle
8” bottom

Or, I’d you scale up to 24” height:

4” top
4” 2nd
8” 3rd
8” 4th (bottom)

You can tweak and play with layout. I think you’ll find the visual layout works better with a more common ratio based on 4” increments.

Depending on what sort of stuff you’re storing, the deeper drawers up top might not be an optimal use of space.

 

[HenryAZ]

You may have already planned this, but keep the fronts of the drawers back at least 3" from the front edge of the workbench top. Just like the toe space on kitchen cabinets, this gives your feet room to stand up close to the top.

 

[cjarvis]

It all depends what you are storing in the drawers.
The bottom ones are so deep that items will likely end up stacked on each other.
I'd be inclined to go with more shallower drawers but like I said it all depends what you are storing in the drawers (and how heavy the items are).

One of those 9" deep drawers would be for sandpaper, stored in manilla file folders, much like a file cabinet drawer, with space for sanding discs at the back. I could put cans in the other drawer.

You may have already planned this, but keep the fronts of the drawers back at least 3" from the front edge of the workbench top. Just like the toe space on kitchen cabinets, this gives your feet room to stand up close to the top.

Using the 18" high cabinet arrangement, I'd have more than enough toe space beneath it. That's a good idea though.

Part of the reason I went with 3" drawers was to keep them shallow for things like wood chisels, squares, tape measures, clamps, etc. Stuff that's low profile that I don't want ending up just piled in a drawer.

Thanks for the responses!

 

[rsanter]

Looks fine to me, the question is will that lay out work for what you want to put into them.

 

[cjarvis]

Looks fine to me, the question is will that lay out work for what you want to put into them.

That's part of the problem... I haven't any idea what I want to put in them beyond what I've listed above.

On the back wall of my shop, I have plenty of cabinet storage, but I don't have near enough drawer space for all the small stuff. They're all metal cabinets salvaged out of a Home Ec. room at a local school when they converted it to a computer lab. I could put drawers inside the cabinets at the ends, but I'm not keen on drawers behind doors.

 

[rharman]

Looks good. I like the symmetry.

One thought - maybe split one of the 32's into 3 drawers for smaller items. Just depends on your intended usage.

 

[Nowater]

I would make it just a little more symmetrical by making the top four drawers 32" wide, one on top of the other and your planned 3" deep. I find the shallow drawers more useful and that is what I did in my shop. Now, it is easy to vertically support the drawer sections in the center of the drawer cabinet.

After that, I would carefully measure the room needed for sandpaper storage in the height direction after allowance for the drawer bottom. Many drawer bottoms are not actually at the bottom of the the drawer.

I suggest full extension drawer glides which make getting any thing out of the back of the drawer much easier. They take up 1/2" on each side of your drawer, so plan ahead.

I hope this helps.