I was raised on a farm with acres of land and all kinds of animals, including horses. My mother had us all riding (somewhat) by the age of 2 or 3, so it wasn’t a surprise that both of my sisters ended up continuing that activity. They both own and board horses, teach riding lessons, and ride a lot themselves. Having a bunch of horses also means you end up having a lot of horse “stuff”… saddles, bridles, blankets, pads, lead ropes, halters… and bits. Lots of bits.

One of my sisters saw a picture of a fancy cabinet that someone used to hang all their bits. It was a pretty fancy cabinet and had glass panel doors and crown molding trim… the first thing you think of when considering where to store your bits. It was elegant, but seemed like it might be a bit over-the-top for the type of barn “furniture” she was looking for.

That’s where I enter the picture. She texted me with the picture of the cabinet and asked, “What do you need to make this for me? I’m serious.” The obvious answer was “a bunch of money and some lumber,” but we slapped together some plans in Windows Paint (me) and notepad paper (her) and I rolled with it. It was a project with as tight a budget as was practical, but definitely not a “chipboard and roofing nails” kind of thing.

After making what were, more or less, real plans, I headed to the local big box lumber store to grab some plywood and related supplies. The first step was to break down the 3/4″ plywood to make the uprights and two of the shelves, the bottom shelf and the shelf at the top of the drawers. The rest of the shelves were made from 1″ thick pine stair treads since they were the ones that were going to hold the weight of the bits. It was probably overkill, but the cabinet was going to be 36″ wide with around 16 bits hanging from each shelf. I created dadoes in the uprights to help with strength and with gluing up the unit. The panels were too long and narrow to cut the dadoes on the table saw, so I rigged up a quick router jig so I could cut both the 3/4″ dadoes and the 1″ dadoes.

The uprights and shelves were assembled with glue and a lot of clamps. I used Titebond 3, which has a slightly longer open time to give me a chance to fuss with things, make sure things were square, hit things with a mallet… glue-up kind of stuff. I got it successfully assembled eventually and left it on the table to dry overnight.

After that, it was time to make the face frame and I chose to make that out of poplar since it’s a basically a hard softwood, which is priced for a budget build while still being somewhat durable. I had to make multiple trips to multiple home centers to find some decent poplar in the middle of a pandemic, but I eventually found some wider boards that I ripped down to the desired width, took some measurements (repeatedly), and pocket screwed the frame together, amounting to what is an absurdly large face frame. I then glued it to the cabinet case, clamped it with a veritable forest of clamps, and, after the glue dried, used a router to edge trim the frame flush with the case sides.

I made the doors out of poplar and 1/4″ plywood, creating cheater frame-and-panel doors using pocket screws, a rabbet, and some glue. I again had to rip the poplar boards to width, but having just ripped a bunch of one and a half inch face frame boards, I had that measurement on the brain and ended up ripping the door rails and stiles to one and a half inches… which was a big oops. So I had to go search for more poplar to rip to the correct width of two and a half inches. So… happy ending.

I used some soft-close euro hinges for the doors (seems fancy, but they were super cheap in bulk). I made the drawers to simply slide in and out between tracks and I put some latches on the back so they wouldn’t inadvertently come out when someone yanked on them with too much enthusiasm.

I used Varathane Smoke gel stain because of the different wood types I used in the build. It seems to give a more even tone across different woods because it acts more like a paint than an absorbing stain. I’m not a huge fan of it because it’s so thick and seems to have a shorter open time than what I’m used to, but it did the job and turned out looking pretty good.

The door and drawer pulls were leftover from an old dining room server cabinet that my wife had refinished, so I added those, even though they weren’t exactly the right color. Then I had to screw in eighty cup hooks for hanging the bits. The top few shelves weren’t bad, but the lower ones were a pain… literally. I attached the back panel after the hooks were all in.

I added some base trim to widen the base a bit to add some stability. I also added some hardware on top to allow it to be attached to a wall or ceiling beam to prevent someone from knocking it down. Everything got three coats of Minwax Polycrylic and it was done.

Here’s the cabinet in its new home and mostly full of bits. Also a bonus picture of my sister’s cat Arnie because… cat.