Utensil Drawer Redesign

The Problem

This utensil drawer is a fairly typical design - the wooden divider insert makes it easy to organize the drawer, even with the jostling that takes place during opening and closing the drawer. However, it allowed the smaller utensils to slide to the back of the drawer, which was inconvenient; and, in the case of the butter knives, allowed them to slide into the joint at the rear of the drawer and slowly force it apart. As you can see from the picture, a couple attempts had been made to strengthen the drawer and prevent this from happening, to no avail.

The Solution

I thought about the problem and came up with a design to prevent this: a block on top of a layer of thin plywood, such that the block would keep the utensils at the front of the drawer, with the plywood fixing the block in place and stopping the utensils from sliding underneath the block.

The front of each block was given a slope for aesthetics, oak was used for durability, and wipe-on poly was used for a close match to the drawer interior. Since the block did not need to be solid oak, a top layer, combined with two layers of just edges, was used to provide a solid look while conserving materials.

Each block was custom ripped to width and fitted to match the existing slots (although they appear to be the same width, they’re not), and the block position was customized for its specific utensil.

With the drawer reinstalled, the improvement is complete!