Furniture Templates New
A furniture template turns the outer dimensions of a piece of furniture into the exact parts you cut, with the board thickness already subtracted. You enter the three numbers you measure against the space — width, height and depth — and the template returns every part with its size, quantity and grain direction.
This removes the step where most home-built furniture goes wrong. The height you measure in the alcove is not the height of any board in the piece: the top and bottom sit above and below the sides, so the sides are shorter by exactly what those boards take away.
Key facts
- Five templates: TV stand, bookshelf, wardrobe, kitchen base cabinet and a box (or cube).
- You enter outer dimensions; every internal part is derived from them.
- The back panel is listed separately because it is a different, thinner material.
- Grain is marked per part — visible faces are locked, hidden parts are free to rotate.
- Fronts can be inserted as a grain-matched set in the app, so the figure runs on across doors and drawer fronts.
- Available in the app and as a standalone widget on the cut list calculator pages.
How to use a template
- 1
Open the template picker
In the app, click Furniture templates — the button sits directly above the Parts table, in every mode, so it stays reachable after a run too. On a calculator page the widget is already on the page.
- 2
Choose the piece
TV stand, bookshelf, wardrobe, kitchen base cabinet or a box. Each one opens with a realistic default size.
- 3
Enter your dimensions
Width, height and depth, plus the board thickness you are buying. Every part in the list recalculates as you move a slider.
- 4
Set the internal layout
Dividers, shelves, and either a door or drawers — or, on the kitchen base cabinet, one drawer over the doors. Compartment widths and front sizes are recalculated at every step. In the app, the Grain matching setting can turn the fronts into one set.
- 5
Insert the cut list
In the app the parts go straight into the parts table. On a calculator page you can download the CSV or hand the list over to the app.
When the app workspace is still the untouched demo, inserting a template replaces the placeholder rows and swaps the stock sheet for one the parts actually fit. If you have already edited anything, the parts are appended and your own stock list is left alone.
The carcass model
The first four templates share one carcass construction, so the numbers never contradict each other (the box is a different, simpler build — see its own section below):
- The top and bottom run the full outer width and sit above and below the sides.
- The sides and dividers fit between them, so their height is the outer height minus two board thicknesses.
- Compartments share the clear width left after the dividers have taken their own thickness out of it.
- Fronts are inset with a gap on every edge so they can open — except on the kitchen cabinet, where they are overlay.
On a 1600 mm wide carcass built from 18 mm board the clear width is 1564 mm. One divider leaves two compartments of 773 mm each; two dividers give three of 509 mm.
This is not the only correct construction. Some builders run the sides full height and fit the top between them, which swaps the two dimensions around. If your cutting service or your hardware expects that, the list has to be converted.
The kitchen base cabinet
The base cabinet has three settings the other templates do not, because a kitchen cabinet is not just a box.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Plinth | How far the carcass stands off the floor. Generates the plinth board and changes nothing else — the carcass parts stay exactly the same. |
| Top | Two rails, or one full top panel. Rails are the normal choice under a worktop: they leave access for the fixing screws and use less board. |
| Overlay fronts | Doors and drawer fronts lie across the carcass face rather than inside the opening, which is how kitchen fronts are built. They come out wider than the opening, not narrower. |
The height you enter is the carcass height. What you actually stand at is the sum of three things:
worktop height = plinth + carcass height + worktop thickness
A 100 mm plinth under a 720 mm carcass under a 38 mm worktop gives 858 mm. The widget shows the carcass top figure so you can check the sum before you cut. The worktop itself is not in the cut list — it is a different material, usually bought cut to length.
One drawer over the doors
Front layout chooses between Doors or drawers (the default: per compartment either a door or a stack of drawer fronts) and 1 drawer over doors — the most common kitchen base unit: one drawer front across the whole face with 1 or 2 doors under it (Doors, default 2) and a Drawer front height you set (default 140 mm). In this layout the carcass has no divider (a full-height divider would stand behind the drawer), the shelves span the full clear width, and with Fronts + boxes the drawer box spans the clear width too.
The fronts are overlay, and the sizes fit together by construction: each door is the face width divided by the number of doors, less the 3 mm joint, and the drawer front is exactly as wide as the doors plus the joint between them. On the default 600 × 720 mm cabinet that gives two doors of 297 × 574 mm and a drawer front of 597 × 140 mm (297 + 3 + 297). A drawer front lower than 60 mm, or one that leaves the doors under 60 mm, is refused with a message.
The box
The box is the one template that is not a carcass. It is a simple butt-jointed box for sheet material (plywood, MDF) — a storage box, a crate, a drawer box — and a cube when you set width, height and depth equal. You enter the outer width × height × depth and the board thickness, and choose whether the box is open or closed (with a lid).
The parts follow from four walls that meet at the corners:
- Front and back — the two full W × H walls.
- Ends (left and right) — (D − 2t) × H, so they fit between the front and back.
- Base — (W − 2t) × (D − 2t), sitting inside the four walls.
- Lid — the same size as the base, added only when the box is set closed.
A cube is not six identical squares — that is the mistake this template exists to prevent. With butt joints, a cube of side S from board of thickness t has two S × S faces, two (S − 2t) × S faces, and one or two (S − 2t) × (S − 2t) panels. Cut six equal squares and the box will not assemble to the size you wanted.
Box parts are grain-free by default (a utility box has no visible grain to preserve), so the optimizer may rotate them for a tighter layout. If your box does have a grain or a printed face, click the Grain icon on those rows after inserting until it shows grain lines.
Drawer boxes
On the TV stand and the kitchen base cabinet, once Drawers is above zero a Drawer boxes setting appears. Leave it on Fronts only and nothing changes. Switch it to Fronts + boxes and five more settings appear:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Runner length | The length of the runners you are buying (250–600 mm). The box is as long as the runner. It must fit the usable depth: the full depth for overlay fronts, depth minus the board thickness for inset fronts. |
| Runner gap per side | The clearance your runner needs on each side, from its instructions (often 12.5–13 mm for side-mounted ball-bearing runners). The box is the compartment width minus twice this. |
| Box board | The thickness of the box walls. Same as carcass puts them on the carcass board; any other thickness lists them separately. |
| Box bottom | The bottom panel thickness. The bottom is screwed or nailed under the box at its full outer size. |
| Height clearance | Space kept free above each box. Box height = inner height ÷ number of drawers − this. |
When a template has drawers, the Shelves setting is hidden and no shelf is generated in that cabinet, because the drawer stack fills the compartment; set Drawers back to 0 and the shelves come back.
Each drawer then gets two sides (runner length × box height), a front and a back that fit between the sides (box width − 2 × box board), and one bottom (box width × runner length). Worked example — a 600 × 720 × 560 mm kitchen cabinet in 18 mm board, three drawers, 13 mm runner gap, 500 mm runners and 30 mm clearance: sides 500 × 198 (6), front/back 502 × 198 (6), bottoms 538 × 500 (3).
The runner length and gap come from the runner you actually buy — the template does not guess them, because a wrong millimetre makes every box too tight or too loose. For a grooved bottom, add the groove depth on each side yourself; the template models a bottom screwed under the box.
Walls in the same thickness as the carcass go into the parts table with it. A different box board and the bottom are listed separately with their thickness — like the back panel — because nesting them with the carcass board would give a wrong sheet count. Box parts are hidden inside the carcass, so their grain is free.
Grain matching: fronts as one set
In the app, the template picker has a Grain matching row whenever the template produces two or more fronts — the kitchen base cabinet (a row of doors, the drawer fronts of each compartment, or the drawer over the doors), the wardrobe (its doors) and the TV stand (the drawer fronts of each compartment). Off is the default; Fronts as one set inserts the parts together with a grain-matched set, so the fronts are cut side by side from one piece of board, exactly one saw gap apart, and the figure runs on across them. You also choose the set’s grain (along the height by default). The app remembers your last choice on this device.
- On the kitchen base cabinet the fronts are overlay, so on the finished cabinet they are one 3 mm joint apart — the set is created with that install gap, and its size check passes by construction.
- On the wardrobe and the TV stand the fronts sit inside the carcass: on the finished piece the figure jumps by a divider and the gaps between neighbours. The set still cuts them from one stretch of board, and the hint under the setting says so.
The set can be edited afterwards like any other. Grain matching needs a free account; on the website’s calculator pages the widget does not make sets and points to the app instead.
Grain direction
Each part is marked fixed or free:
- Fixed — the optimizer may not rotate it. These are the visible faces: the top, the sides, doors, drawer fronts and the plinth. Board decor runs one way, and a rotated visible part reads visibly crossways next to its neighbour.
- Free — rotation is allowed. Shelves, dividers, top rails and the back panel are hidden, and letting the optimizer turn them measurably improves how the parts nest.
In the parts table a fixed part shows grain lines on its Grain icon and a free part shows the turn arrow. You can change any of this after inserting by clicking the icon; it is available on every plan.
What the templates do not do
- Hinge borings and runner fixing holes. Both depend on the hardware you buy. Drawer boxes are available as an option (see above), from the runner length and gap you enter.
- A door and a stack of drawers in one compartment. With Doors or drawers, a compartment gets either a door or drawer fronts; the one combination available is 1 drawer over doors on the kitchen base cabinet.
- Anything that is not a box of sheet goods. A solid timber table with legs and aprons, a mortised frame or a curved front is not a carcass, and the model does not apply.
- The sheet count. The template’s figure is total area divided by one sheet — a lower bound, not an order quantity. Run the optimizer for the real number.
Related calculator pages
Each template also has its own page with a worked explanation:
- TV stand cut list — board thickness subtraction
- Bookshelf cut list — shelf span and dividers
- Wardrobe cut list — hanging height
- Base cabinet cut list — the worktop height chain
For choosing the sizes in the first place, see the standard furniture dimensions guide.