Loved a shoe cabinet at Mobler Furniture, but hated the 300 dollar price. Figured Ana White would have a plan: She Did.

I modified the plans a bit. I built the gables in one piece to eliminate the need for separate feet. We also used hinges instead of the pegs to open and close the doors. The overall length is only 38 inches. I built it counter height.

Because we used wood that we had laying around from previous projects, the drawers, and the unit are made of pine, while the top is made of oak. Total cost for the wood was 30 Canadian dollars, spent years and years ago.

Rather than buy catches like the plans call for, I ran an extra support rail under the top, which made attaching the top easy, but also served as a “bump” for the closing door – it adds a satisfying clunk when closing the doors. I did the same for the second door too. The handles were purchased for a project in our previous house and used here instead.

For the finish, we used paintbrushable Tremclad matte black for the interior (23 bucks – used less than half the tin.) We used 1.5 cans of spray Tremclad red enamel for the exterior (8 bucks a tin).  We hit it all with two coats of Zinsser sealer first – 14 bucks, used half. Total hit was well under a hundred bucks, although we were really only out of pocket for the paint.

Took us a couple days to work out the details, a day to construct, and about three days to paint, one for the undercoat, one for the black, one for the red.

We’re both pretty pleased with how it turned out.

The title of the post, “Ana White Brag Post” is a reference to Tiny House star Ana White’s blog with all her free plans.