Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’. Keep them drawers rollin’

: I was at a party where the hostess had a drawer that slid out from under the kitchen sink. The drawer was more of a wire basket on wheels that held a trash can. Anyway, I think it's a great idea and I'm interested in installing one. How much would it cost and how difficult would it be?

A: For starters, you might consider going to parties where the people are more interesting than the kitchen cabinets.

Roll-out drawers are an effective way to use the wasted space in your cabinets. Just as you illustrated, there is a lot of space in the cabinet under a kitchen sink, but few people use it. Below the sink you have the disposal and drain trap that stick out from the bottom of the sink, and both prevent storage underneath.

Here is where the rolling drawer comes into play. The drawer can be low enough to clear these obstacles, yet it can hold a small trash can near the cabinet door. You can get really fancy and attach the drawer directly to that door.

You can buy premade drawers and finagle the parts together under the sink, but remember that with a fully loaded wastebasket sitting at the end of a fully extended drawer, the hardware better be tough. Otherwise, the weight and abuse you dish out to it will pull the hardware out, and may have you cleaning dinner scraps off the floor.

Consequently, I wouldn't use a basket; I would build or buy a drawer.

You can avoid purchasing expensive floor mounting brackets and guides by building a sled for the drawer to ride in. Make the sled out of 1x3s and a piece of one-quarter inch plywood. The 1x3s will stand on their sides and be screwed to the plywood, which will then be screwed to the cabinet bottom. The drawer guides will be screwed to the inside of the 1x3s and the wastebasket drawer will ride in the middle.

Make sure that the sled is not wider than the cabinet door or it could affect the other cabinet door or the cabinet's center support. Use 100-pound, full-extension drawer guides (they don't weigh that much, but they support lots of weight), and screw them onto the inside of the 1x3s.

Now you can build a drawer to fit into the sled, and it should be built taller than average. This will prevent the trash can from wobbling and maybe spilling as you pull the drawer out for use. Use three-quarter inch stock and build the drawer 7 inches high. Build it so that its final dimensions fit into the sled.

You can use the same one-quarter inch plywood for the bottom of the drawer, and you can either cut a rabbet (a groove) near the bottom of the drawer, or just screw it to the bottom of the drawer's perimeter. You also can install a partition inside the drawer to separate the trash can from the back of the drawer (which you can use to store dish soap, sponges, etc.).

Set the trash can inside the drawer and make marks on the drawer showing where to screw the partition. This partition also will make the trash can rock solid.

All that remains is installing the slides on the outside bottom edge of the drawer (the slides roll into the drawer guides that are on the inside of the 1x3s). They simply screw into the drawer, although you will have to make some small adjustments after test-fitting them into the drawer guides.

If you have European hinges (the kind that are hidden), you can remove them from the door and attach the drawer to the bottom of the cabinet door. This will save you the extra step of pulling out the trash can drawer after you open the drawer.

Make sure the door will still line up in its old position; predrill all the holes and install the screws from inside the drawer to the backside of the cabinet door. Select the mounting location on the door in a spot where there is enough wood for the screws. You certainly don't want the screws poking through a thin veneer panel.

When guests visit, hopefully you will be so engaging as a host that they won't notice your cool cabinets.

Michael D. Klimek is a licensed contractor and president of Pro Handyman Corp. Questions may be sent by e-mail to: questions@pro-handyman.com. Or, mail to: P.O. Box 96761, Las Vegas, NV 89193. His Web address is: www.pro-handyman.com.