But first…

Some Notes About Building This Bookshelf with Drawers:

This project was built mainly using ¾″ plywood plus some solid wood for the trim on the sides.

How to Build a Bookshelf with Hidden Storage Drawers

Check out the full length video tutorial here:

Grab the printable building plans here:

Step 1: Assemble the Bookshelf Cabinet

To get started, I used a circular saw and Kreg Rip Cut to cut down my plywood sheets. I cut 2 side panels, 4 shelves, and three thinner pieces to attach at the top as trim/supports.

All dimensions and cut diagram can be found in the plans here.

RELATED: How to cut plywood sheets

Edge banding is always optional, but it does make the plywood edges look nice and finished.

RELATED: How to apply iron on edge banding

I assembled the main body of the shelf using ¾″ pocket holes and 1 ¼″ pocket hole screws.

RELATED: How to use a pocket hole jig

I’ve detailed the shelf locations in the printable plans.

Step 2: Add Back Panel

I pulled out a sheet of ¼” plywood and cut out a back panel to fit over the shelf body.  I set aside and used the leftover pieces for the drawer bottoms later.

Before attaching, I double checked the diagonals of this panel to make sure it was square.  This will help ensure the bookshelf is square once it’s attached.

Then, I stapled this in place.  You could also glue and brad nail or screw this in place if you didn’t have a stapler.

RELATED: What’s the difference in a finish, brad, and pin nailer vs a stapler?

Step 3: Install Drawer Slides

The shelves were slightly shallower than the side panels, so I used a scrap piece of wood to help me install these slides flush to the front edge of the shelves. 

And I used another scrap block to make sure these were installed about 1 ½” below each shelf.

I installed four 14” slides on one side, then flipped it over and installed the other 4 on the opposite side the same way.

RELATED: How to install drawer slides

Step 4: Install Trim on Bookshelf Sides

I used 1x2s, 1x3s, and 1x6s for the trim. Feel free to get creative and customize this if you’d like something different.

For the front of the shelf, I glued up two 1x2s into an “L” to kind of “wrap around” each corner.  You don’t have to glue these together first—you could just glue and nail them directly to the shelf instead. 

However, I thought it would be easier to line up everything this way. Either way works fine.

Once the glue on these corner pieces was dry, I glued and nailed a 1×3 along the back edge of the shelf.  Then, I glued and nailed the corner trim pieces.

Notice that the full 1×2 goes on the side and the shorter piece goes on the front. 

And finally, I cut to fit a couple of 1x6s to go between them at the top and bottom.

I trimmed out both sides like this.

Step 4: Build and Install Hidden Storage Drawers

I cut my drawer box pieces from ¾″ plywood according to the cut list in the plans. I cut ¼″ dadoes, ¼″ deep, ½″ from the bottom edge of all sides to install the ¼″ plywood drawer bottoms into.

Or, if you don’t want to cut dadoes, you can certainly just glue and nail the bottom panel onto the drawer box.

RELATED: Check out this post on how to build drawer boxes

Then, I drilled ¾″ pocket holes into the front and back drawer pieces and assembled using 1 ¼″ pocket hole screws.

To install these drawer boxes, I screwed them directly onto the slides that were already installed.

I used some scrap 1x pieces and some clamps to help keep these ¾” below each shelf as I screwed them in.

RELATED: How to install drawer slides

Step 5: Add Drawer Fronts

For the drawer fronts, I used ¾” plywood, but you could also use 1x6s for this if you’d rather.  I cut four pieces to fit and applied iron on edge banding on all sides.

I held these in place so that they were just BARELY below the top edge of the shelf, then clamped it on at the bottom and screwed these in from the inside.

I repeated on all four drawers, but there wasn’t enough clearance below the bottom drawer to clamp.

Step 6: Install Top Panel & Crown

I cut a piece of ¾” plywood to fit on the top so that there was 1 ¼” overhang on the sides and front.  I applied iron on edge banding, then placed this on top of the shelf.

Before securing, I made sure the overhang was equal on the sides and the back edges were all flush, then I used 1 ¼” screws through the top supports to attach.

To dress it up a little, I added some small crown molding along the top.  This is optional and you could definitely use whatever type of molding you wanted. 

I marked and cut each piece to fit and nailed it in place.

RELATED: How to cut crown molding

I had planned to leave this gap between the front trim and the crown open, but after installing it, I decided it looked weird, so I cut some scrap 1×2 and tapped it in to fill this space.

I secured the crown and this piece together with a few brad nails to finish it up.

Step 7: Finish Bookshelf with Drawers

After puttying the nail holes and a final sanding, I gave the shelf a coat of Minwax Early American stain and a few coats of Minwax Polycrylic and it was complete!

RELATED: How to finish wood furniture

This DIY bookshelf with hidden storage drawers was such a fun project that’s big in size, but not overly complicated to put together. 

The storage drawers are a great addition to give it a little extra versatility without looking out of place.

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Until next time, happy building!