cabinet-desk with hidden doors

Paul Brubacher

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296
Location
outside of Toronto, Ont
My mother is moving into a seniors residence and I would like to build what is almost an entertainment center to house a small bar fridge on top and a typewriter in the top drawer.

The top drawer will be a box with front and part of the top hinged to make it easy to access the typewriter.
The top of the drawer will also save as a table when the front is not tipped up.
LeeValley has this hardware for hidden doors. http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=1&p=48629&cat=3,41305,55408&ap=1

What alternate methods are there for doing the hidden doors?

Here is a sketchup dwg of the proposed design. I'll probably build it 24" deep.

Chest-cabinet.jpg

Good that I previewed the posting, the full height got cropped. It is 3' 10".

Any ideas for improvements or possible pitfalls?
Oh yeah, the back will be open at the top for ventilation.
 
you might want to think about keeping the fridge lower, to keep the center of gravity more towards the floor.

A low fridge might be hard for Mom to bend down to get to. Will the seniors residence allow you to put fasteners into the wall? Might be a good application for earthquake straps. At 3' 10" tall, it's not likely to be falling on top of someone under most circumstances, but if someone was on the floor trying to pull themselves up, tipsy furniture would not be a good thing.
 
Thanks all for the replies.
Art, it is actually relatively modern. It saves about 75 characters so it is possible to do corrections and positioning. She was concerned one time that the characters that were being printed were not the same as the keys being pressed. Solution; re-boot, or at least turn the power switch off-on.

She might want the fridge on top of a smaller chest of drawers. This would leave it out in the open. Instead of having side hinged doors, i'd change the cabinet portion to a drop down door for a desk. Then the sewingmachine and typewriter could be kept in the top and pulled out onto the table for use.

The main question is what a comfortable height is for the typewriter and sewing machine. The old office desks had a wing for the typewriter that was 26" high.
 
The main question is what a comfortable height is for the typewriter and sewing machine.

For typing, the height of the keyboard should be where the fingers rest with elbows at right angles. For the sewing machine the height should be so that her fingertips can rest on the feed dog (table) of the machine. Because the sewing machine 'table' and typewriter keyboard are about the same height from the tabletop, (trade-offs for two different machines) it only depends how tall she is in a sitting position to get the height of her fingers with 90 degree elbows.
 
best answer for comfortable heights for her, is to ask her. :thumb:

have sit in a chair that is comfortable for her, have the tape measure handy, and have her demonstrate a comfortable height for typing, and measure up from the floor. then subtract the thickness of the desk top, and the height of the typewriter, from the top of the desk, to the middle height of the keys. when all is said and built, the keys will be within her comfort zone. :thumb:
 
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