Hello fellow makers, sorry for the long time between posts. I needed to do some college visits with my son and we also did another planned project in the house. We had some replacement windows and doors installed and I decided to replace all of our window moldings on our second floor. This gave me more time to work on my design for the built-in cabinets for our spare room. Also, this room became nice workshop where I could do my cutting for the new moldings.
If you remember from my last post, I am designing some cabinets to use for various needs in our house.
My criteria:
- Storage for bulky things like blankets and areas to hang coats, etc.
- Utilize the nice drawers that I have been holding onto for several years since remodeling our kitchen. These are really nice solid wood drawers with good quality glides that extend out completely and have pneumatic pistons for soft close.
- Table top for working area. I often have projects where I need counter/table space for cutting, mounting or other crafts.
- The counter can also be adjusted to table height. My younger son has a baseball card collection and he likes to spread and sort his cards on the table in this room. More on this later.
- Lastly, the table can fold out to twice the size and be dropped to about 20" off the floor. The extended table/bed area is similar size (78" x 60") to a large inflatable mattress. So this room can also be a spare bedroom.
We have many needs for this room and I hope this Built-in Console can address our various needs.
First Design
If you remember from my sketch in my last post, I was going to have a tall cabinet on both sides of the back wall with a long table in-between. There would be deep shelves along the top for all types of storage.
I started out by measuring the overall room and modeling it in xDesign. I would then take advantage of the single modelling environment by creating each panel in context of the room assembly and then use the make component command for each. Or, sometimes I would instead insert a new component and then create the features in the activated sub-component. Next, I would create an assembly pattern for these various panels but then I learned that the panels are not constrained in the assembly the same way as the seed object. I did not like having the patterned instances draggable, so I instead duplicated the components and then mated in place with a rigid joint. I would have expected the pattern instances to share the same DOF as the seed component, so if the seed was fixed, the pattern instances would also be fixed.
When creating the mates for each of these components, I try to mate them to the same other component so each subsequent mate is part of the same joint. I find it easier to manage assemblies when I keep the total number of joints to a minimum. I thought this project would be a good case for Smart Mates but when I tried it, the smart mate would not always mate to the same other component in order to create the mates in the same joint. Instead it would create multiple joints.
In the first design shown above, I made each end cabinet the full height of the room. But then I decided to make the shelves go across the full length of the wall instead, as I thought it was a better use of the space. In the first design I considered affixing 2 of the drawers to the underside of the table. I did not like the look of this and it would make the table heavier to lift to the various heights.
Final Design
In my second design I made 3 larger shelves span the length of the back wall. The 2 end cabinets are shorter but proper hanger height. I stuffed 4 drawers into the bottom of each cabinet. Currently, I have 4 different heights for the table.
Going from the first design to the second was a fairly easy change in xDesign. I used the same components and changed a few of their sizes and spacing. I added trim to the openings of each cabinet and in the future I hope to make doors for them. Lastly, I added some horizontal rails to the back wall inline with the 4 table stops. These rails can be use to prop up my son's baseball cards, pictures or other small trinkets.
Foldout bed
Shown here is the table lowered and folded out in the lowest position. I added 2 slide in bars that will lock the table into this position and not let it tip forward. I will need to test this later to see how strong it is and if it can truly support the weight a person laying on it or if I need to design some sort of leg/support for underneath.
Styling
I was able to export the cad data as a read-only 3DXML and then import it into SolidWorks Visualize. I am using the connected version but for some reason it will not read native xDesign data.
I rendered this to get a look at the possible materials, colors and lighting. I will build the cabinets out of 3/4" plywood and face the natural woodgrain to the inside of the cabinets. The outside would be painted a steel grey of some kind, final color tbd. The table tops will be butcher block and will use solid wood for the table stops and card rails. It was fun to render this project in visualize and I can usually find all the materials I need. I also used one of the default back plates which creates a much nicer view out of my window!
Next steps:
- Prep the electrical in ceiling / wall behind the console unit
- Calculate the cut list / layout and determine the number of plywood sheets needed
- Purchase the plywood and start building
