DIY Small Chest with Drawer Slides and Concealed (Euro) Hinges

My parents asked me to build a small chest with a drawer on top and a pair of cabinet doors on the bottom, so I made one as a DIY project.

It was my first time using a ball-bearing drawer slide and a Euro-style concealed hinge, but neither was particularly difficult — and they were both fun to work with. The biggest perk of the concealed hinge is that you can fine-tune the door position front/back, left/right, and up/down even after installation, which is a huge help for a hobby builder trying to get a clean, even gap.

If you’ve been wanting to build furniture with drawers and doors, this write-up covers dimensioning tips and a couple of mistakes I made along the way.

The finished chest

Here’s what it looks like done — drawer up top, double cabinet doors below.

Thanks to the concealed hinges, I was able to even out the gap between the two doors and get a clean look. The finish is Turner Color Works “Antique Wax” in Dark Oak, which gives the wood a warm, slightly aged tone.

Materials and cost

The carcass is mostly pine glued panel. The drawer’s interior uses cedar and paulownia glued panel, and the back panel is lauan plywood.

Material	Where it’s used	Source	Cost (approx.)
Pine glued panel 1820×300×18 mm (×2)	Carcass (boards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)	Home center	~7,000 yen
Paulownia glued panel 600×300×13 mm	Drawer bottom (board 9)	Home center	~850 yen
Cedar 1820×120×14 mm	Drawer sides (boards 7, 8)	Home center	~1,200 yen
Lauan plywood	Back panel (board 6)	Home center	~1,200 yen
Biscuits + biscuit-joint router bit	Joining the panels	Amazon	~3,000 yen
Drawer slide — Sugatsune 4518 series, 250 mm	One left+right pair	Amazon	~1,200 yen
Concealed hinge — Sugatsune Olympia 360	Full overlay × 4	Amazon	~1,200 yen
Antique Wax (Dark Oak)	Turner Color Works	Amazon	~2,000 yen
Pulls and feet		Home center, Amazon	~2,000 yen
Total			~20,000 yen

(Not counting the circular saw and palm router.)

Design dimensions and cut list

Overall size

Outside dimensions

Sized to fit the spot it was going into: about 50 cm tall × 50 cm wide × 30 cm deep (not counting the feet).

Inside dimensions of the drawer

Drawer placement / clearance

Cut list

Here are the cut sizes for each board.

[Board numbers]

[Board dimensions]

Build steps

Step 1: Cut the boards

I cut the boards with a circular saw. If you’d rather not, most home centers in Japan also offer a paid cut service.

Once everything was cut, I dry-fit the pieces (no fasteners yet) just to get a feel for the final shape.
Looking pretty good.

[The saw I used] My circular saw is a HiKOKI C6MEY; the current successor is the C6MEY2 (as of 2024). Prices have crept up, so the mid-range HiKOKI C6MB4 is also a solid pick. I learned the hard way — bought a cheap saw, couldn’t get accurate cuts, ended up replacing it — so I’d point beginners at the mid-range and up.

Step 2: Build the drawer box

Start with the drawer box itself. Drill pilot holes first to keep the wood from splitting, then drive screws. Since the inside of the drawer is hidden in normal use, there’s no need to cover the screw heads.

Step 3: Build the carcass with biscuit joints (no visible screws)

For the visible carcass joinery, I went with biscuit joints. Since there are no screws, there are no screw heads showing — the look is much cleaner.

A dedicated biscuit joiner runs around 30,000 yen, but you can substitute a palm router. I chucked a biscuit-joint slot-cutting bit into mine and milled the slots that way.

For the biscuits themselves I used Makita #0 biscuits.

The slot-cutting router bit lets you mill biscuit slots into the edge of a board.
Mark the slot locations first (photo).

Then mill out the slots like this.

Slot cut.
And the biscuit fits snugly, like this.

The biscuit slot-cutter bit can’t reach the spots shown on the side panels, so for those I switched to a regular router bit and cut a straight slot.

Once the dry fit looked good, I applied Titebond to the biscuit joints and clamped everything up for real.

⚠️ Important: wipe up squeeze-out before it cures. Once Titebond hardens, getting it off cleanly is a real pain.

The back is a piece of lauan plywood screwed on for rigidity. Since it’s hidden, the screw heads can stay visible.

Step 4: Installing the drawer slide (sizing tips)

For the drawer slide I used the Sugatsune 4518 series, 250 mm. About 1,200 yen for a left+right pair — solid value.

How to size the drawer width for the slide

The Sugatsune 4518 is 12.7 mm thick on each side. If you size the gap between the drawer box and the carcass to be exactly 12.7 mm, you risk the drawer not fitting at all.

Mount the carcass-side rail first. Put it at the height where the drawer will sit centered, with the front edge of the rail flush with the front edge of the side panel, and screw it down.

To get the screws centered in the slide’s slotted holes, a Center One self-centering punch is really handy.

Next, the drawer-side rail. Draw a centerline on the drawer box, line the rail up to it, and screw it on.
Front-to-back position: align the front of the rail with the front of the drawer box.

Smooth open and close on the first try — drawer slides really aren’t hard to install, and they’re cheap, so I’d recommend them for any DIY project that calls for a drawer.

With the drawer mechanism working, it was time to add the front face panel.

Position the front face (board 4) so that it sits where it should once the drawer is installed, and screw it on from the inside of the drawer box.

Drawer done.

Step 5: Installing concealed (Euro) hinges — mistakes and adjustment tips

For the cabinet doors I used Euro-style concealed hinges. They give you doors with no visible hinges from the outside, and you can adjust the door position even after they’re mounted.

The specific model I used was the Sugatsune Olympia 360, full overlay.

Door side: drilling the 35 mm cup hole

On the door, drill a 35 mm-diameter “cup” hole. The standard offset is 5 mm from the edge of the door (so the hole’s center is 22.5 mm from the edge). Don’t drill through — go just deep enough that the hinge cup seats flush.

I drilled the 35 mm hole using a wood-boring Forstner-style bit in a corded drill.

So in total, the hinges go in these four spots (two per door, two doors):

Drill the 35 mm cup hole, checking depth against the actual hinge as you go.

When the cup seats flush, screw the hinge down.

Then screw the carcass-side mounting plate to the carcass.

Adjusting door position

The headline feature of a concealed hinge is the three-axis adjustment. Even after both halves are mounted, you can tweak the door’s position front/back, left/right, and up/down to get an even gap between the doors.

The screws shown in the photo control:
1: left/right　2: up/down　3: front/back

That basically wraps up assembly.

Step 6: Finishing with antique wax

With assembly done, on to finishing. I used Turner Color Works “Antique Wax (Dark Oak)“.

Sand to #240 first, then rub the wax in with a rag. That’s it — no special technique needed, and you get a quietly aged look.

Step 7: Pulls, feet, and done

I picked up pulls for the drawer and the doors at the home center. The door pulls came with screws that pass through the back of the door and tighten the pull from inside.

For the feet, I used height-adjustable furniture feet from Amazon, screwed directly to the bottom panel.

Done!

Drawer slides open smoothly, doors swing cleanly. With just two key bits of hardware — a drawer slide and a concealed hinge — a minimal-looking little chest came together really enjoyably.

Recap

Quick takeaways from this build:

• Drawer slide: design the carcass-to-drawer gap as 13 mm (not 12.7 mm). And mount the rails on the side panels before assembling the carcass — much easier access.
• Concealed hinge: use two per door (one alone wobbles). The post-install three-axis adjustment lets even a hobby builder dial in an even gap between the doors.
• Biscuit joints: no visible screw heads, much cleaner look on the carcass.
• Antique wax: just rub it on, get a soft, slightly aged tone — beginner-friendly finish.