Introduction: DVD Drawer DIY - a Little History
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About: I am the lead tattoo artist at Red Dragon Tattoo and Piercing in Rocklin, Ca. I've been tattooing since 2001 and look forward to a long and rewarding career! I am happily married to a beautiful woman, Stefanie…
This is my first instructable so please forgive any missed information or lack of details. If there’s anything I can add please let me know and I will update accordingly!
This project is the latest move in a decade long endeavor to appropriately manage our ever growing movie collection, starting from a DVD player wedding gift back in 2002. Ever running out of room we scaled up to a pair of wall mounted book shelves we purchased from a failing book store that ended up being an eyesore and an invitation to every delivery person and solicitor to suspiciously complement our vast collection. So after our last move we decided to nix the cheap shelves and attempted a more compact binder system but soon realized editing and adding to the order would be too problematic, plus the binders still took up too much room. So I went back to the drawing board (or Google) and discovered an array of Disc Jockey cases that hold 500 to 1,000 discs that weren't too expensive, $60-150 range. We ended up buying two $80 900-disc cases with 7 ½’ x 15 ½’ x 23 ½’ dimensions which were really great. They come with hanging two sided disc sleeves and we bought the alphabetic dividers separately. The boxes have a built-in track system that did a good job holding everything in place but due to poor workmanship were a bit flimsy so the tracks would twist, causing the sleeves to fall off on one side requiring regular maintenance. A major downside to minimizing to cases is the fact that someone could walk right in and pick them up by their handles and rob us of our collection in one fell swoop where as when everything was on the wall in their cases, I didn't fear much more than a smash and grab due to the mere mass with all the cases involved. Also storage of the hefty cases became an issue because we were perusing them daily and we couldn't stack them because one case was for the kid’s movies and one was for everything PG-13 and up, so they remained in the open and in the way reducing the square footage of our living room.
This project is the latest move in a decade long endeavor to appropriately manage our ever growing movie collection, starting from a DVD player wedding gift back in 2002. Ever running out of room we scaled up to a pair of wall mounted book shelves we purchased from a failing book store that ended up being an eyesore and an invitation to every delivery person and solicitor to suspiciously complement our vast collection. So after our last move we decided to nix the cheap shelves and attempted a more compact binder system but soon realized editing and adding to the order would be too problematic, plus the binders still took up too much room. So I went back to the drawing board (or Google) and discovered an array of Disc Jockey cases that hold 500 to 1,000 discs that weren't too expensive, $60-150 range. We ended up buying two $80 900-disc cases with 7 ½’ x 15 ½’ x 23 ½’ dimensions which were really great. They come with hanging two sided disc sleeves and we bought the alphabetic dividers separately. The boxes have a built-in track system that did a good job holding everything in place but due to poor workmanship were a bit flimsy so the tracks would twist, causing the sleeves to fall off on one side requiring regular maintenance. A major downside to minimizing to cases is the fact that someone could walk right in and pick them up by their handles and rob us of our collection in one fell swoop where as when everything was on the wall in their cases, I didn't fear much more than a smash and grab due to the mere mass with all the cases involved. Also storage of the hefty cases became an issue because we were perusing them daily and we couldn't stack them because one case was for the kid’s movies and one was for everything PG-13 and up, so they remained in the open and in the way reducing the square footage of our living room.
Step 1: DVD Drawer DIY - What I Used
After some thinking I realized that the bottom drawers on our entertainment center were roughly the same size as the cases so I decided I would convert the drawers! I went to Home Depot and bought:
1. 2 - 8” Aluminum C-channels $18.78
2. 2 - 8” 0.75 x 2.5 inch wood beams (that match the color of the drawer) $11.43
3. A hacksaw since I didn’t have one already for the C-channels $14.97
4. 3/32” split point drill bit (to screw the C-channel to the wooden support) $3.77
5. 5/8” screws (to screw the C-channel to the wooden support) $3.54
6. 1” finishing nails $1.30
I already had:
1. Wood glue
2. Drill
3. Hammer
4. Measuring tape
5. Sander
6. Vise grips
7. And I used some Legos for a pair of spacers (but I’ll get to that later)
1. 2 - 8” Aluminum C-channels $18.78
2. 2 - 8” 0.75 x 2.5 inch wood beams (that match the color of the drawer) $11.43
3. A hacksaw since I didn’t have one already for the C-channels $14.97
4. 3/32” split point drill bit (to screw the C-channel to the wooden support) $3.77
5. 5/8” screws (to screw the C-channel to the wooden support) $3.54
6. 1” finishing nails $1.30
I already had:
1. Wood glue
2. Drill
3. Hammer
4. Measuring tape
5. Sander
6. Vise grips
7. And I used some Legos for a pair of spacers (but I’ll get to that later)
Step 2: DVD Drawer DIY - Woodworking
I started out by figuring out the depth needed to allow the disc sleeves to hang without touching the bottom or sticking out of the top. Then I inserted the wood supports in the front and the back of each of the drawers for the C-channels to rest on about a 1 ½’ from the top edge of the drawer. I applied wood glue and held them in place with the vise grips then nailed them into the wood of the drawer. On a side note I had to account for the back side of the screws for the drawer handles so I used a 1’ key-hole drill bit to core out the space so the handles can be changed or tightened in the future!
Step 3: DVD Drawer DIY - Metalworking
Next I measured the drawer depth and hack sawed the aluminum C-channels into 10 equal lengths (5 for each drawer), then I drilled holes into each end of the C-channels in order to screw them into the wood supports.
The next step was to install the first channel against one side of the drawer atop the wood supports then screwed it in on both ends (the drawers are wider than the cases so I had a little room to spare so I decided to leave a storage gap on the inner right edge of the left drawer and on the inner left edge of the right drawer so they were mirrored rather than identical to each other). Then I used the Legos to create two even 5 ¼’ long spacers (which is the exact width needed for the disc sleeves to hang properly between the channels). I placed one on the front and one on the back wood supports then lined up the next channel firmly against the Legos and screwed the channel into place then repeated until all five channels were installed in each drawer.
The next step was to install the first channel against one side of the drawer atop the wood supports then screwed it in on both ends (the drawers are wider than the cases so I had a little room to spare so I decided to leave a storage gap on the inner right edge of the left drawer and on the inner left edge of the right drawer so they were mirrored rather than identical to each other). Then I used the Legos to create two even 5 ¼’ long spacers (which is the exact width needed for the disc sleeves to hang properly between the channels). I placed one on the front and one on the back wood supports then lined up the next channel firmly against the Legos and screwed the channel into place then repeated until all five channels were installed in each drawer.
Step 4: DVD Drawer DIY - All Together Now!
After that it was finished and I organized the sleeves alphabetically from left to right. Due to the wood supports the rows ended up being shorter in depth so we weren’t able to keep the movies separated like they were in the cases so now the grownup movies spill over into the second drawer. But results may vary depending on the dimensions of the drawers used in your project. Remember that you need to compensate for the weight of the contents once the drawer is filled so I wouldn’t recommend using anything flimsy or poorly built. I’d like to mention that the entertainment center I used for this project was from R C Wiley so it’s well built and really expensive and it’s my wife’s favorite piece of furniture in our home so I was very careful on my measurements and detail on every step. I’m thinking of adding a kickstand that drops down when you pull the draw out and folds up when you push the drawer back in, because the drawers are now much heavier and I’d like to avoid future problems through compensation. Tag me into your project! @azolina3