# Table with drawer



## jeremymcon (Oct 16, 2014)

I'm sitting here at work planning my next project, before even having finished the cabinet I'm currently working on! Anyway, I thinking I'd like to build a coffee table that includes a drawer under the top. I'd like to have it built into the skirt of the table. What I'm having trouble picturing is how exactly to support the back of the drawer. I can't just glue a box to the underside of the top, so what's the conventional way to do this? 

I'm not planning to use any hardware - just planning to do a traditional wood-on-wood drawer. It also wouldn't be the full width of the table. 

Pictures would be ideal, but description would be good too. I have seen furniture like this before, but I don't own a piece that I can go and look at to see how it's constructed.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

There isn't a problem doing that except you will have to make the top of the table thick enough that it doesn't have to have the skirt as you will only have a skirt supporting the top on the back side. On the front side the drawer would take the place of the skirt and would just be hung by the side tract. You would just put a dado in the middle of the drawer sides and on the inside of the table on each side put a rail with a runner on it.


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## michaelpugh (Dec 31, 2013)

Here's a great video of a desk being made with all wooden drawers.


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## m.n.j.chell (May 12, 2016)

I don't know your level of skill, or how much work you wish to do. You did say you didn't want to use any hardware, so this is probably not a valid idea.
Wife and I are always talking about making things with hidden compartments. My idea for a coffee table with drawers would be to make a traditional looking table with designs in the skirts. 

But the design on at least one side, would be a drawer. Using a "push to open" drawer slides, you could make a functional drawer(s) that no one else would know were there.


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## jeremymcon (Oct 16, 2014)

I'm pretty new to woodworking. And your diagram is pretty much exactly what I have in mind, minus the hidden and push to open features. 

I'm not even clear on how you'd mount that hardware you showed. Would you put a piece going the whole way across the underside of the table, joined to both stretchers? I guess you'd have to, right? There'd be no way to fasten a wooden drawer support to the table top directly and still allow seasonal movement of the top. 

Unless... For the other table I built I attached the table top with pieces if wood with slots drilled into them to allow the screws to slide back and forth with the movement of the table. I could probably join the supports to the rail, then secure the area that'd support the back of the drawer with screws in slotted holes, right? Same sort of rig I'd use to attach the top to the skirt. 

Right? Or is that too much fussing over wood movement?


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## m.n.j.chell (May 12, 2016)

You hear so much about expansion and contraction of wood. I know it exist, but I don't think it's something that's going to cause problems with your table. I've got a dozen, or so, wood pieces in our house, and none of them show any signs of cracking or damage due to this phenomenon. 

I've got a wooden box I made to hold vinyl albums. It's a perfect square, one open side, album covers fit in and stack. I glued it together in England while I was there in '85. Straight edges, no dovetails or anything (no tools then, there) just four sides and a bottom. I say all that to say, it's still together today and shows no signs of expansion/contraction damages.

You could, if you wanted to, make a single drawer in a box, glue that box to the bottom of a table top, and probably never have a problem with it. You can also use screws that are just short enough to not got through the top.


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## Jammer (Jul 15, 2009)

jeremymcon said:


> I'm sitting here at work planning my next project,...


I'm thinking that if you're "sitting there at work..." perhaps you should consider doing the work you're being paid to do.


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

Jammersix said:


> I'm thinking that if you're "sitting there at work..." perhaps you should consider doing the work you're being paid to do.


Don't suggest that, half the online forums will shut down and the other half will just be us old guys reminiscing. 0


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## jeremymcon (Oct 16, 2014)

Do work at work? Pfft! That's for squares. 

Actually, I work night shift at a small hospital, so sometimes we're slow and there just isn't anything to do. Then sometimes we're insanely busy and don't stop all night. Never can predict it.


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

jeremymcon said:


> Do work at work? Pfft! That's for squares.
> 
> Actually, I work night shift at a small hospital, so sometimes we're slow and there just isn't anything to do. Then sometimes we're insanely busy and don't stop all night. Never can predict it.


You are in an unique situation, I have never worked for or owned a company where there was nothing to do.


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## Jammer (Jul 15, 2009)

I've never seen a company where there was _truly_ nothing to do. But then, I was a business owner, and have a completely different viewpoint and attitude than most about whether or not a given employee has something to do or not.

If we assume he is correct, and he has nothing to do during some shifts, that would go a long ways towards explaining why American health care is so expensive-- it's not because it's the best in the world, it's because it tolerates employees surfing the web on the clock.

It tolerates waste.


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## Jig_saw (May 17, 2015)

Hey Jammer, people are not like robots that they can go on working 9-5, 5 days a week non-stop. One has to take a break and rest for higher productivity. Jeremy explained that he works night shifts in a hospital. Now the only time you have non-stop work at a hospital is during some kind of accident or emergency (like a mass shooting). I guess you don't want that to happen every night! Doctors, nurses, and hospital staff can't be expected to be working like machines. If that were so the quality of health care you receive will be minimal (like in some third world countries).

Similarly, the quality of products you build and sell in your business greatly depends upon how well you treat your employees. If you treat them like machines, you get nothing but sh***. Treat them like human beings who deserve some rest, and pay them well, your products improve remarkably. That may be one reason why countries like Germany have maintained high quality of their products, while other countries have suffered in quality by off-shoring their production overseas for cheap labor and low production cost.


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## jeremymcon (Oct 16, 2014)

Geez! Sorry I mentioned I was at work! Holy cow. I work in a laboratory, so once my instrument maintenance is done, and qc had been run, if I don't have any specimens to process I don't have anything to do. I could clean, but we have people who clean, so that would be silly. I'd have to track them down and borrow a cleaning cart and who knows what'd happen while I'm out of the lab looking for them. I could do continuing education, but I've already finished that for the year.

Anyone who has worked in a hospital knows that it isn't like any other business. Our work doesn't come with any regularity or predictability, and if we get a surge of work there's nothing that can be put off. When I worked at a grocery store as a kid there was always some cleaning, stocking, or tidying up to do, and so we did it when we were slow. But if we suddenly got a rush of customers, some of the cleaning could wait, or some of the shelf stocking could wait. 

If we don't keep the lab fully staffed (there are only 2 of us running the whole place at night), then our emergency department suddenly gets busy and we are suddenly overwhelmed, they aren't going to get their labs (including blood transfusion services, cardiac studies, etc) in a timely manner, and people could die!


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## m.n.j.chell (May 12, 2016)

Teaching profession ... adult level (vocational).
Class lets out, I get the training aids ready for the next day ... then wait for quitting time.
During the day, the class gets to a point where they are all doing labs, I have many minutes when I can sit back and respond to a few posts.

An efficient worker ends up with all kinds of "free time" on the job. Those who are busy every second of each day are either (usually) overloaded by their boss, or inefficient at the tasks they are responsible for.


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

I guess it is just something that happens that some of us don't understand or condone. This is an interesting article:
http://www.bxgi.com/content/wasted-time-at-work.pdf


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## craigwbryant (Jan 22, 2012)

Ummm...am I the only one hoping this thread gets back to talking about building a table with a drawer?


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

Jammersix said:


> I'm thinking that if you're "sitting there at work..." perhaps you should consider doing the work you're being paid to do.


That was also my first thought. then I realized that he is probably a woodworker by profession and this is his job.

George


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

I have now read all of the posts that were made after the one that elicited my response. I have seen nothing that changed my initial impression. 

George


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## m.n.j.chell (May 12, 2016)

craigwbryant said:


> Ummm...am I the only one hoping this thread gets back to talking about building a table with a drawer?


Check out posts number 4 and 6 ... best ideas I've seen for a coffee table with a drawer !!!


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

mikechell said:


> Check out posts number 4 and 6 ... best ideas I've seen for a coffee table with a drawer !!!


Just read post #6, guess we have more editing to do to all the information advising about wood movement that proliferates the web. :smile3:


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## m.n.j.chell (May 12, 2016)

FrankC said:


> Just read post #6, guess we have more editing to do to all the information advising about wood movement that proliferates the web. :smile3:


:smile3:
I just don't see it like others do. 
It seems to be such a big deal, and probably is on "fine furniture" or large, single wood type builds. But it doesn't seem to have affected any of the "novice level" things I've built.


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## TimPa (Jan 27, 2010)

one method I like for drawers in a front apron.


I start with an oversized apron, and rip off the portion hat will be the rail above, and then the rail below the drawer. left with what will be the center, I cross cut the side-drawer front-side form that. then glue the rails and sides together leaving a gap for the drawer front. when all reassembled you have a continuous board again.


you can assemble 2 hardwood L shaped assemblies and attach them to the front and back aprons to act as drawer rails/guides.


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