Pallet Wood LEGO Storage/Play Cabinet

Our LEGOs outgrew the last storage cabinet I made, so this time I made a better one. You can watch this video to see how OR read the following Instructable. I hope this inspires you to create and make your own storage solutions. -t

Step 1: Prep Your Materials

I carefully brought my pallets outside and dismantled them using a few techniques. I then denailed them very carefully, ran all the boards through a bench planer and trimmed off the rough edges on the table saw. Now I had some nice stock to work with.

Step 2: Make the Main Cabinet

I made my cabinet to have 15" X15" interior cargo areas so I could fit full LEGO baseplates inside. SO the exterior of the cabinet is a couple inches longer than 30" and 15" deep, plus the doors. Mine is about 24" tall but obviously you can use your own measurements.

I cut my 1/2" thick pallet boards to length and used my router table to make aprox 1/4" rabbets on both sides of the boards so the pallet slats can overlap. I made very simple, 1" wide frames to create each panel and glued the half-lapped boards in to place, using brad nails to hold them. This method allows the volatile pallet wood to move a little without creating big gaps in the sides.

Once I created my three vertical panels, I glued on 1/2" runners to hold the drawers, lined them up and added a top and bottom out of more half-lapped boards. I used the thicker 3/4" pallet boards for this and secured them with glue and screws, then capped the screws with plugs.

There was some planing and sanding to do.

Step 3: Make the "drawers"

These are more like boxes that we can put in the cabinet. I had a bunch of odd-sized strips of plexiglass left over, so i was able to make two of the sides of each box clear, to facilitate the hunt for the perfect LEGO pieces. This would be expensive to buy.

I used my 3/4" pallet cutoffs to make the other sides of the boxes and cut 1/4" plywood to make the bottoms. No fancy construction here, I just lined up the two wood sides to the bottom and glued and nailed them in place. I then drilled screw holes in the plexiglass and screwed them on to the other sides. A little sanding was needed.

Step 4: Make the Doors

I thought I was done, but my wife asked me to add doors so our house didn't look like a toy store when the LEGOs weren't in use. This was a great idea but, of course, there are still always LEGO sculptures on top of the cabinet, so... :)

I mimicked the side panels' construction and used some cr@p handles and hinges I had salvaged from other things. I really like the doors and it gives the piece a great, mod look.

I didn't finish it as we have a fish tank stand I made in similar fashion right next to it that is not finished, so the patinas will eventually even out.

All that's left to do is play!

Be good,

Tim