Tutorial: Custom Built-In Utensil Divider

Don't you hate those cheap plastic utensil inserts that go in your utensil drawer? They slide around every time you open the drawer and never fit quite right because they typically are one-size-fits-all. They are usually too shallow and you aren't able to fit very many utensils in each divider.  They also never look custom because they do not match the material of the inside of the drawer. Most of all, they are ugly!  Well, we decided to build a custom utensil divider to match the melamine that the drawer inside is made of. 

This project has been on my to-do list for a long time. It is such a simple project that it is easy to overlook, but it adds a customized feel to the kitchen drawer.

Cost: $5

Time: 1/2 to 1 hour

Difficulty: Easy

Tools Required

• Tape measure
• Table saw
• Miter saw
• Air Compressor
• 18 gauge pneumatic brad nail gun

 Lumber and Materials

• Rubbermaid 10 in. x 36 in. White Shelf (this is a white melamine shelf with edging on all sides)
  Click here to see the shelf we bought.  Just a note, in store we paid about $5.36.

Consumable

• 1 1/4” 18 gauge brad nails 

Steps:

1. Measure the Drawer

Measure the interior dimensions of the drawer. Also, measure the depth of the drawer. Draw out your desired configuration.  One tip:  Make sure you make the dividers deep enough to hold your desired amount of utensils, but not so deep that they are hard to grab out once it's finished.

2. Rip-Cut the Melamine

After you figure the drawer depth and then figure your desired depth (either flush or recessed a little bit), set the table saw fence at the desired length. Make sure you keep one of the finished edges on your rip cuts. Cut the 10 inch piece into three pieces (the middle piece will be thrown away - the two sides will be used for the dividers).  Remember, you will always want the pretty melamine side showing and not the cut edge.

If you don't have access to a table saw, you could get away with cutting the wood with a circular saw or a jig-saw.  You would need to measure out the whole length to cut, clamp your wood, and then cut away.  Doing it this way won't get your cuts as straight and the pieces may not sit as flush on the bottom of the drawer, but it would be better than nothing!

3. Cross-Cut the Rips into the Desired Lengths

Measure, mark and cut the two pieces into the desired lengths (in our case, we had 4 pieces at 11 inches, 1 at 13 1/2 inches and 1 at 9 inches). We actually put the bottom five pieces in the drawer and then measured the dimension for the final top divider. We just barely had enough material to finish. If you have longer lengths or more pieces, you may need a long piece of the melamine. 

Here are our pieces (minus the 9 inch piece) after they were all cut and ready to be nailed into the drawer.

4. Measure and Nail the Dividers in Place

Measure out equal spaces and then nail the pieces into place. Obviously place the finished edge of the melamine at the top and the unfinished edge at the bottom. We used an 18 gauge brad nail gun with 1 1/4 inch brad nails, but you could certainly use a 16 gauge nail gun with longer nails. 

It can be a little tricky to get the openings spaced evenly.  To make sure ours were spaced out evenly, we scooted the four cut dividers over to the edge, measured the clear opening, then divided that by five (the number of spaces we had).  It came out at about 2.2, so we went from there.

If you don't have nail gun and an air compressor, your next easiest option would be screwing them into place.  If for some reason you don't want to do that, you could hammer in finish nails to do it.  I would recommend running out and buying a nail gun and a compressor if you don't have one though... you will never regret that purchase and I don't think your husband will argue very much if you tell him you want to buy tools.

We added a few nails from the bottom just to make sure ours was really secure.  If you do this, make sure to take the extra time to measure and mark where you want to nail.  You wouldn't want a nail blow-out to make your whole pretty drawer look terrible!

5. Put the Drawer Back In

Put the drawer back in and you are done. We actually took the drawer front off of the drawer so we could nail the dividers into the drawer. Otherwise, you could nail it from the bottom.

Then, of course, you add your silverware.

Feel free to stand back and marvel at how beautiful and organized your drawer looks.  I think we've opened and closed our "new" drawer about a hundred times.  My favorite part is that we made the dividers out of the exact same material the drawer was made out of so it looks "built-in" and custom all at the same time.  

This will be worth way more than your $5 and 30 minutes!