If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have been in the process of completely transforming a closet in my master bedroom into a built-in closet and office combo. Full details and reveal on that coming soon. Well as part of the makeover I needed a place to hide my printer and my files. I don’t have that many files, so I decided to make a rolling filing printer cabinet. But not just any cabinet, I wanted this one to kinda be hidden… after-all this is in my bedroom and I don’t always want it looking like an office.

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This is a fairly simple build, just basically a box with a drawer, some wheels and then some flare!

You can make this with less than 1 sheet of 3/4” - 4x8 plywood. It runs about $36 a sheet, plus drawers slides, casters and some 1x2’s… total cost comes to about $60.

So let’s get started building.

Step 1:

Cut out plywood pieces per plan for the outer carcass. You can have big box store cut down the plywood down to smaller more manageable pieces for you. For Complete Build Plans with dimensions, coming soon.

***NOTE: DO NOT cut out drawer box pieces yet, as we will take exact measurement later

on in the build to ensure proper fit before building.

Step 2:

Assemble carcass using 3/4” pocket holes and 1 1/4” pocket hole screws.

Step 3:

Attach casters! I used some small 1” casters I got on Amazon because I wanted as much storage space as possible. They came with two locking and two not locking. You can get them, here.

Step 4:

Build drawer box. I built the drawer box a little backwards than I normally do because I wanted the front to be the front and not have a false front. For details on how I generally build drawer boxes, check out my tutorial here.

I always measure my drawer slides in the carcass to get exact measurements before building my drawer boxes. Sometimes the carcass is a little smaller or a little bigger than the plans or the plywood isn’t exactly 3/4”. That is why I feel it is best to wait and build the drawer box after the carcass.

The best way I found to layout the drawer front was to install the slides on the partial box (3 sides), install it and then attach the front with a couple of brad nails once it was lined up. Then pull the drawer out and finish attaching drawer front using 3/4” pocket holes with 1 1/4” pocket hole screws. I was painting the cabinet so it was easy to fill in the brad nail holes.

Step 5:

Route rabbets in rails and attach to drawer box. I routed a 1/2” rabbet in some scrap 3/4” plywood to create rails for the file folders to run across. I got the exact measurements to do this by testing out a couple of folders in the drawer. And once I had it where I liked it I used a couple of wood screws and secured the rails to the drawer boxes. Note: I didn’t add a bottom to this drawer box to a) save material and b) I didn’t think it was necessary because I am only going to have hanging file folders in it.

Step 6:

Sand, Fill, Prime and Paint! I tried something new with this project and used spackle to fill in the plywood edges rather than edge banding. It was very easy to do and looks good, but only time will tell if the result is as good as edge banding. I also made use to use primer on the whole piece before painting to make sure the wood was sealed as well as the spackled edges.

Step 7:

Add 1x2” (actual dimensions 3/4” x 1 1/2”) slats. You can either use store bought 1x2"‘s or rip your own on a table saw out of regular 1x’s you have. I cut the length on these so that they would line up flush with the top of the cabinet and would overhang the bottom to cover up the casters.

I had several of these left over from when I cut, sanded and stained some for the rest of the closet…. but did need to repair one of the slats so that I would have enough. It had broke on a knot. So instead of running to the store to buy another piece of wood for this I decided to glue it together using Krazy Glue’s Fast Dry Wood Glue. It was super simple… apply glue, clamp for a couple of minutes and I had the exact number of slats needed to finish the project.

Once I had all my slats fixed, sanded, stained (Varathane’s Golden Oak) and sealed it was time o attach them to the carcass. I painted the side of the carcass that I was attaching the slats to black, so it would look like the built-in side of the closet once it was done. It also gives a nice shadow look. To attach the slats to the carcass I again used Krazy Glue’s Fast Dry Wood Glue and some 1 3/8” pin (23ga) nails. The pin nails were to act as clamps because I wasn’t able to get clamps into the middle while the glue dries. Not only does this glue cure within six minutes but it also dries glue, so I wasn’t worried about seeing any squeeze out between the slats or trying to remove it.

Step 7:

I had some left over wallpaper from the office remodel so I decided to use it as a shelf liner on the top of the cart. It makes me happy and will protect the finish on there. I plan storing odds and ins on that shelf so they don’t have to sit on the top of my desk and look cluttered. I got the wallpaper here.

And just like that I had an AWESOME printer filing cabinet!!! I love how it turned out

BEFORE

AFTER

I hope you enjoyed this project as much as I did. If you did, please leave a comment below. And if you want to make one for yourself… I have Complete Build Plans Coming Soon.

Thank you for following my building journey. Remember Build Loud, Build Wild and have an AWESOME day!

Sadie Mae

Can’t build it now? PIN it and save it for later!