- My name's Aaron Massey, from mrfixitdiy.com,
and today, I'm gonna show you
how I helped my friend organize his kids' playroom,
by building a giant toy box.
If you have kids, you know how quickly toys can pile up
and completely make a mess of your home.
Having a place for them and keeping them organized
is a huge part of keeping your sanity.
So today, I'm gonna show you how I built this toy box,
utilizing the new lineup of Craftsman V20 tools.
Craftsman is the official sponsor of this video,
so thank you to Craftsman for making this video possible,
and if you'd like to check out the complete lineup
of V20 tools, I'll place a link in the description
down below, that you can check out.
So without further ado, let's dive into the project.
As with most projects, this project started
with a design that I put together in SketchUp.
My friend sent me some measurements
and roughly what he was looking for,
so I based the design on his ideas.
This toy box is huge.
It's 90 inches long by 42 inches tall,
and serves a multitude of functions.
Obviously, it holds a lot of toys.
But it also acts as an entertainment center
for gaming systems, a DVD player, and other electronics.
If you'd like to follow along with this project
step by step, and make your own version of this toy box,
there are free downloadable plans for it
on my website that you can find at the link
in the description down below.
While you're there, you might wanna check out
some of the other links to some of the
other free project plans I have as well.
(upbeat music)
To get started with this project,
first I had to create a template
for the uprights of this toy box.
This project is basically the same shape
repeated over and over, so creating
a template that I could use to make
accurate, repeatable shapes was important.
I use a piece of MDF to measure
and lay out the shape I wanted,
and then cut the shape out using the Craftsman V20 jigsaw.
Using a straight edge with the jigsaw as a guide
allowed me to keep the lines nice and straight and clean.
From there, I took a piece of rough-cut
3/4 paint grade plywood, and roughly cut
a similar shape with the jigsaw,
and then using a flush trim router bit
on my Craftsman router, I followed the template
to create one finished panel for the box.
Once I had the one piece sorted out,
I knew that I could just repeat this process six more times.
Once I had all six of the uprights cut out,
then I ripped a piece of plywood
to serve as the top and the bottom.
And from there, it was all about dados.
A lot of dados.
I mean a lot of dados.
I chose to use the dados because
it gives a lot of strength to the build,
because each piece interlocks
and slides into the other pieces.
But it's a lot of extra work to do this,
so you wouldn't necessarily have to do this
if you didn't want to, but it does add
a little extra strength, and since
kids'll be climbing on it, playing on it,
playing around it, and when it comes to kids stuff,
I feel like it's never a bad thing to over-build something.
If I were to do this again, though,
I probably would use 1/2 inch plywood
instead of 3/4 inch plywood,
because by the time I got this thing
all assembled and put together, it was really heavy.
Once I had all the pieces cut and roughly mocked up,
I took it apart little by little,
glued everything up, and then shot it together
with the 16-gauge Craftsman V20 brad nailer.
This is actually my first cordless brad nailer,
so it's kinda nice to not have to wrestle with the air hose.
Once I finally had the whole carcass put together,
I could put the front face frames on.
The design is laid out so that each piece
can be mitered at 45 degrees,
to make it easy and repeatable on the table saw.
Again, I glued and fastened these in place with brad nails.
Once that was finished, I added some iron-on edge banding
to cover up the exposed edges of the plywood.
This helps clean up the edges, and makes it easy
for the paint to look uniform
without having to add a bunch of coats.
Then I could patch the brad holes
with some wood filler, and prep it for paint.
I sprayed several coats of wood-sealing primer
with my paint sprayer, before spraying a couple coats
of exterior semi-gloss white to finish it off.
I chose exterior because I figured it'd be
a little more durable than interior paint.
I also added some adjustable leveling feet
to the bottom of the toy box,
by gluing some two inch wood blocks
in the corners, adding a threaded insert,
and then used my angle grinder
to slice a line in the end of a carriage bolt.
This allows you to use a flat head screwdriver
to raise or lower the toy box, to make it level in the room.
I also added a thin piece of 1/4 inch plywood
on the back, to finish off the piece,
and that was pretty much it for this project.
I'm really happy with the way this toy box came out.
It's a massive piece of furniture,
but something tells me it's still not
gonna be big enough for all the toys.
I hope you guys enjoyed this project,
and again, if you'd like more details,
measurements, and step by step instructions
on how to build your own, be sure to download
the free plans on my website, at the link
in the description down below.
Once again, I wanna say thank you to Craftsman,
for sponsoring this project and providing
the V20 lineup of tools I used in this video.
The links to all the tools and materials
I used in this project are down below.
Thank you guys for watching, and if it's your first time
visiting the channel, please hit that subscribe button,
and also hit that notification bell,
so you never miss out on any of
the new content that I put out.
And as always, I encourage you to leave me a comment
down below, let me know what you thought of the project,
and what type of project you'd like to see me tackle next.
Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.