Hot take: custom drawer slides for a weird angled corner cabinet

I just finished a kitchen job in Portland where the client wanted a corner cabinet with a 45 degree angle, but also wanted full extension drawers inside it. I figured I could modify some standard undermount slides, no big deal. That was a mistake lol. The geometry for getting the drawer to clear the face frame and still open all the way was a nightmare. I must have spent like 12 hours over three days just on mock-ups, cutting plywood test pieces and tweaking the slide mounting points by fractions of an inch. In the end, I had to order a specific pair of 90 degree corner slides from a specialty supplier, which added a week to the timeline. The debate I'm having with myself is whether I should have just told the client it wasn't possible with a standard setup from the start, or if pushing through the problem was the right call for the final result. Has anyone else had a simple-sounding request turn into a multi-day geometry puzzle?

2 comments

2 Comments

troy9966d ago

What was the final cost difference between your custom solution and the specialty slides you ended up buying?

sandra7156d ago

Honestly used to believe you should always try to make the client's vision work, no matter what. That corner cabinet situation would have been a perfect example. Now, after burning a weekend on a similar angled drawer nightmare for a built-in, the math just doesn't lie. Sometimes you have to be upfront about the limits of standard hardware. The final product might be the same, but you save everyone's time and your own sanity by knowing when to call in the right part from the start.