I admit to being slightly stumped in the “unfinished cabinet aisle” at Lowe’s as I started counting out the sizes for sink bases. Thirty-six inch, thirty inch… um… twenty-four? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Because we have exactly room for seventy-three linear inches of cabinetry in the station, and nary an inch to spare. That gives us room for two twenty-four inch cabinets and space for a mini-fridge, and no amount of creative measuring was going to make a thirty inch cabinet work.

Then, after a moment pondering the mysteries of the universe and cabinet measurements, I remembered I own a drill.

Therefore, the universe (and wonderful world of cabinetry) is my oyster.

Materials:

• 24″ unfinished base cabinet
• Sink-front tray kit

Tools:

• Drill (including 3/16″ bit)
• Pliers
• Pencil

This one was so easy, I’m not sure it even merits a post and yet, it almost didn’t occur to me that I could do this and I wouldn’t want anyone else to fall into that trap. Also, these trays can be installed on a regular sink base and are ultra-handy.

I started with this:

The reason a 24″ base will work for us, is because we’re using a small “bar” sink we salvaged from a demo-job in the Station kitchenette.

Yeah, it came with the counter top.

Step 1: Remove Drawer (and hardware)

It only takes 2 screws to remove the face of the drawer…

So that was easy.

Then the drawer track, which was held on by a screw…

… and these.

Easy enough to pinch and remove them.

And at this point you could simply screw (or glue) the drawer face back on to the cabinet and be done with it. But having handy little sink-front trays is more exciting.

Step 2: Install Hinges

I bought this kit at Lowes for something like $15. When you will only have 72″ of cabinet space for a year, every little bit of storage counts.

It came with a handy little template for marking everything out.

Which results in perfectly pre-drilled holes.

For hinge placement, I marked the opening of the cabinet frame on the back of the drawer face.

And while laying everything out, I also inserted the screws that would hold the sink-front tray.

The hinges themselves took a minute or seven to figure out, but after the mechanics of it made sense, it was pretty easy to install the hinges (again, based on the templated holes.)

And when both hinges were attached to the drawer-front, to fasten them to the cabinet frame.

Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?

Step 3: Insert Tray & Enjoy

All in all, it took about 20 minutes (if you don’t count the eleven minutes it took me to find the drill bits.)

Here’s to not letting ourselves be limited by standard cabinetry sizes!

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