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This is a drawer-building exercise wearing a coffee table's clothes. The outer box — plywood ends, 2x2 legs, a five-board top — goes together fast. The six drawer boxes are where the real time goes, and where the project succeeds or fails: every drawer runs in a Euro-style bottom-mount slide, and those slides have almost zero tolerance for an out-of-square box. Build one drawer carelessly and it binds, rubs, or won't close flush with its neighbors.
So the sequence matters more than usual here: build and square the outer case first, get the drawer openings dead-even, then size every drawer box to its actual opening rather than to the plan's numbers — plywood thickness and saw setup both drift by a hair from project to project, and "should be 16 inches" is not the same as "measure the opening." Casters on the base turn it into something you can pull out from the coffee table position for easy access, which matters more here than on a fixed piece since you're opening six drawers instead of one or two.
| Item | Qty |
|---|---|
| Plywood, 3/4", 4x8 sheetOne and a half sheets needed — buy two. Rip into 15-3/4" wide strips with the grain. | 2 each |
| Pine, 2x2, 8 ft | 3 each |
| Pine, 1x2, 8 ft | 2 each |
| Pine, 1x3, 8 ft | 6 each |
| Pine, 1x4, 8 ft | 2 each |
| Pine, 1x8, 10 ft | 1 each |
| Pine, 1x8, 8 ft | 1 each |
| Plywood, 1/4", 4x8 sheetDrawer bottoms. | 1 each |
| Euro-style bottom-mount drawer slidesThe single biggest line item on this build. Buy quality — cheap slides are the most common reason a finished drawer feels bad. | 6 pair |
| Caster wheels | 4 each |
| Drawer knobs or handles | 6 each |
| Pocket hole screws, 1-1/4" and 2-1/2" | 1 box |
| Brad nails, 1-1/4" | 1 box |
| Self-tapping wood screws, 2"For attaching the top from underneath through the 2x2s. | 1 box |
| Wood glue | 8 oz |
| Wood filler | 1 each |
| Sandpaper, 120 grit | 6 sheet |
| Stain or paint | 1 quart |
Overall cost: $$$$. Lumber prices vary by region, species, and season, so we give a band rather than a figure we would only be pretending to know.
| Part | Qty | T × W × L |
|---|---|---|
| End frame legs (short)Pine | 4 | 1 1/2" × 1 1/2" × 12 3/4" |
| End frame legs (tall)Pine | 4 | 1 1/2" × 1 1/2" × 32" |
| End panels3/4" plywood | 2 | 3/4" × 12 3/4" × 32" |
| Drawer slide support cleatsPine | 4 | 3/4" × 2 1/2" × 12 3/4" |
| Front/back trim (support legs)Pine | 4 | 1 1/2" × 1 1/2" × 32" |
| Front trim between drawersPineSpace exactly per the layout — this is what keeps the six drawer gaps even. | 4 | 3/4" × 1 1/2" × 32" |
| Drawer box sidesPineSize to the actual opening, not blindly to this number. | 12 | 3/4" × 2 1/2" × 16" |
| Drawer box fronts/backsPine | 12 | 3/4" × 2 1/2" × 29 1/2" |
| Drawer bottoms1/4" plywood | 6 | 1/4" × 16" × 31" |
| Drawer facesPineKeep an even 1/8" gap on every side once hung. | 6 | 3/4" × 3 1/2" × 31 3/4" |
| Tabletop boardsPineGlue up on a flat surface, clamped, before attaching to the base. | 5 | 3/4" × 7 1/4" × 36 1/4" |
Buy 22 boards at 8 ft.
4 boards
Predrill and mark all pocket holes across the whole plan before you start assembling anything — it's much easier to drill flat parts on a bench than to reach into a half-built cabinet later.
Build the two identical end frames: legs, plywood end panel, and drawer-slide cleats. All outside edges stay flush.
Position the 1x3 cleats so their screw holes line up with your actual drawer slides — remember the slides sit 3/4" in from the outside face of the legs. Glue and brad-nail in place.
Space the front and back trim pieces exactly per the layout — this is the single most important measurement on the whole build, because it's what keeps the gaps between the six drawer faces even. Check the whole case for square before the glue sets; an out-of-square case guarantees six drawers that fight their openings.
Size each drawer box to its actual opening, not to the cut list numbers verbatim — plywood thickness and assembly tolerance both shift the real opening size by a little. Square is non-negotiable here: an out-of-square drawer box binds in a Euro slide no matter how well the slide itself is installed.
Mount the slide hardware to the case first, then to the drawer boxes, and test-fit before committing to final screws. A drawer that binds on the first try almost always means the box, not the slide, is slightly out of square — fix it now rather than fighting it after the faces are on.
Attach hardware (knobs/handles) to the faces before you glue and nail them to the drawer boxes — it's much easier to drill a flat face on the bench than after it's hung. Keep an even 1/8" reveal on every side of every face; this is what makes six separate drawers read as one clean grid.
Glue the five top boards edge to edge on a flat surface, clamped evenly so the joints don't dome or dip. Once dry, attach from underneath through the 2x2 legs with self-tapping screws — no fasteners show on top.
Attach caster wheels to the underside of the base. Sand every surface, fill any nail holes, and finish before loading the drawers back in.
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Assumes 8 ft stock, a 1/8" saw kerf, and buying each part at its own width. Change the board size or kerf on the full board plan →