Transforming a Kitchen Cabinet Into a Plate Rack

Remove the doors from the cabinet you intend to turn into a plate rack by unscrewing the hinges using a screw driver. Remove the hinge from the cabinet completely, and set the doors aside.

Fill the screw holes from the hinges using wood filler. Allow the filler to dry completely then sand it down to a smooth surface using fine-grain sandpaper.

Mark the inside walls of the cabinet in pencil at the desired height for the plate rack. To determine the height for your plate rack, measure the diameter of the plates you intend to store in the rack and add about 2 inches to the measurement.

Measure the width and depth inside the cabinet and subtract 1 inch from the depth measurement. Cut a piece of ¾-inch plywood using those measurements. Slide the piece of plywood into the cabinet at the height you made the pencil marks to be sure it fits snugly against the sides and back of the cabinet.

Have someone hold the piece of plywood in place as you toenail 2-inch wood screws through the top of the plywood into the back of the cabinet every 4 inches to secure it in place. Drive nails from a nail gun through the outside of the cabinet into the sides of the plywood to further secure it. You may choose to use wood screws here instead but the smaller nail heads will be less visible.

Cut two pieces of 1-by-1-inch hardwood to the width of the cabinet, and lay them flat in front of you. Measure the exact center of each piece of wood, and make a mark in pencil. Make additional pencil marks in the center of the wood every 1 ½ inches along the length on both sides of the center mark.

Use a drill press with a ½-inch drill bit to drill holes in the pieces of 1-by-1-inch hardwood at each of the pencil markings. The holes should be about a ¾-inch deep, not quite passing through the entire thickness of the wood.

Cut pieces of 1/2-inch wooden dowel to use as dividers for your plate rack. The number of dowels you cut should equal the number of holes you drilled into the 1-by-1-inch pieces of hardwood. Each dowel should be equal in length to the height of the plate rack minus a 1/2 inch.

Apply a dab of wood glue to one end of each dowel and insert it into a hole in one of the pieces of 1-by-1-inch hardwood. Apply some glue to the other end of the dowels and slide them into the holes on the second piece of 1-by-1-inch hardwood. The completed product of this step will serve as the face of the plate rack.

Insert the plate rack face you just constructed into the cabinet, laying the bottom piece of 1-by-1-inch hardwood flat on the cabinet bottom and aligning the top edge of the top piece with the plywood shelf you installed earlier.

Drive nails from a nail gun through the front of the top piece of the plate rack face into the thickness of the plywood shelf to secure it in place. You may also choose to drive nails down through the top of the bottom piece of 1-by-1-inch hardwood into the bottom of the cabinet.

Paint or stain the plywood shelf and the plate rack face to match the rest of the cabinet. Once the paint or stain has dried, insert your plates vertically into the spaces between the dowel rods.