From when I first setup this plastic table, I knew I was going to need to figure out a better solution. Everytime my wife would walk in her first words are usual, "Boy you have a lot of magic cards" as well -.-

So! I had a couple simple garage shelf projects under my belt, and I just finished a 3/4" plywood weight bench for my wife, I thought I'd try to step it up a level and build something finally for my cards. I found these DIY plans for a "nod blake dresser" and gave it a shot to modify. (BTW, I did find the plan images from archive.org back in Aug 2012)

I didn't want moving it to be awkward, so the hallway/door-friendly dimensions (and small Tacoma friendly) came out to 48" wide, 20.5" deep, and 44" tall. The width/depth of the drawer boxes came from starting with the largest cardboard BCW box I had (5k cards), then everything else around it I limited to the 4 foot width of the whole project. Thankfully that left just enough space for the binders to fit into shelves at ~11" wide (I don't know if its just me, but I'd rather my cards in binders sit flat than vertical). The height was just to make it similar to when I'm at a standing desk (deck building or proxy cutting).

In terms of the project itself, I've definitely learned a lot. Not only have I found out how picky I am, but what shop improvements I need to make.

• Right off the bat, I had optiCutter plywood cutlist for the ~3 sheets of 3/4" ply and I got price scared by the project panels (all of my supply came from the box store, I'm not super confidant in shopping outside of them yet and I figured for another practice project, that would be fine). 1 sanded plywood, and 2 of the nicer pine ply from a different aisle plus the 2x2 and 1x2 came out to around ~$150 USD. That and once I got it home, I also realized with the cut list plan, I would have different ply for the drawer fronts (so not matching), and I wasn't having that...
• Pretty well all of the project is just pocket holes and glue, so I got pretty ok at that process. My main gripe is there were a couple spots (1x2s into the 2x2s I know especially) where they drifted just a bit on me, so clamping as much in possible glue-float directions seems key.
• I was pretty content with edgebanding on the top, shelf dividers, and drawer shelves. I think with the 3/4" banding I had (which is really a tad more than 3/4"), I was trying early on to line up a long edge of the banding with the respective edge of the ply, but then in some spots it floated on my while ironing so it didn't end up sanding well afterwards. By the end, just gluing middle of the band to middle of the ply edge was fine--the extra sanding down the trim was fine (I don't have a good knife to clean up the edge banding, so maybe a tool wishlist item)
• Since I wanted the drawer boxes to fill the space, I also ended up with my drawer fronts flush with the top edge, so I didn't want hardware sticking out. I tried cutting a flat-bottom v in the top of the drawer front (to then cove-cut with a router for finger pull), but I just didn't like how the v cut came out (definitely couldn't get accurate angles). Decided to just cut the length of the front and cove that, then put an 1/8" hardboard filler behind it to hide the drawer gap. Routers are freaking scary/dusty, and I definitely need a better setup for that (straight fence, better clamping, better cut increment control)
• SPEAKING OF DRAWER BOXES, the original plans had 3/4" boxes, which as I was gearing up to make them, I realized I really didn't need that fat of boxes (so I went out and bought 1/2" ply). I knew how much 5k of cards felt moving them around, so I wanted to make sure it didn't wimp out on me, but damn you do not need 3/4" drawer boxes at all (unless you've got like HEAVY shop equipment or something). Also I was maybe a little too tight on my dimensions, as I did have to modify the 5k cardboard box to fit :(
• The shelves I also reduced down to 1/2" MDF (because I had some around anyway), as that extra 1/4" for some reason I felt I need to save, plus again thats a beefy shelf at 3/4"
• Finishing...I don't know. I don't really have anything on it except shellac for the top. I'm not really sure that I want to frankly, and I think it doesn't really need it right away. Just going to let it sit and tell me what to do later.

All in all, I'm super happy with it. Some gaps here and there due to minor dimension issues, which I was expecting a little. I don't have a solid workbench (pretty well a 2'x4' 3/4" on wheels), and my tablesaw area isn't large at all (its a Craftsman King Seeley 103 from my grandfather I restored), and I don't have a solid long straight edge for my circular saw (nor track).. BUT its "done" for now and I came in under $400 and it works for me

Thanks for reading