Furniture Repair: Replacing a Drawer Bottom
You know the piece.
The one that you find in an antique store. It looks amazing... on the outside. You go to pull a drawer only to find that it doesn't budge. You find that the bottom of the drawer is duct taped in place.
You buy it anyway, because you can see it's going to be worth it.
That's the story with this piece, so I thought it was a good opportunity to continue our series on furniture repair. This time it's all about drawer repair.
Step 1. Remove the existing drawer bottom (if there is one). Remove any extra nails, staples, splinters of wood etc. You should be left with a nice groove where the new bottom will fit.
Step 2. Measure from the middle of the grooves. Make sure here your drawers are square (or as square as possible for an old drawer) as you measure.
Step 3. Buy new material. I use 1/4" thick luan plywood/underlayment. It's thin, lightweight and easy to work with. Mark the wood (use a square to keep your lines nice and straight) and cut. I used a circular saw, you could use a table saw if you have one.
Step 4: Slide your new drawer base in place. It should shore up any un-evenness in the drawer though and make it much more sturdy and square.
Step 5. Using my nail gun I tacked the board down with some 1" brad nails. This will keep the piece of wood from sliding around and gives more support to the drawer overall.
Ready for paint! Stay tuned for the next part in my drawer repair series!
Ready more about this repair on my blog:
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http://www.rootsandwingsfurniture.com/blog/furniturerepairdrawer
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Perfect tutorial. For large drawers I use luan. For smaller drawers I use hardboard.
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