Essential storage – Kabino drawers by Normann Copenhagen

Storage in my rental home is pretty much non existent. I’ve mentioned before that my challenge is to bring in furniture that can withstand another house move. Large items of furniture such as drawers must be able to withstand any reassembly. My issue is the culture of disposable furniture. If it can’t be reassembled, recycled or reused then I’d seriously question if it’s worth buying at all. The chest of drawers that I finally chose for my dressing room is the beautifully minimal Kabino 6 drawer unit. Designed by Simon Legald, who has designed a huge number of products for Normann Copenhagen. From the well known Block scroll trolley table to the Toj clothes rack there’s a lot, I hadn’t quite realise large the portfolio was.

This simple Kabino unit has a slight industrial feel with the drawer fronts being metal but also designed with a familiar sideboard format. Softened with the used of Ash wood and a matt white top. Wooden legs lift if off the floor giving my small room the illusion of a bit more space and that sideboard feel. The unit comes in flat pack format, with a quality unit it is able to withstand reassembly. perfect!

I wanted to assemble the drawers myself to understand the quality and to compare to other flat pack furniture I have previously made. The quality is there for sure, and heavy too. I think I did a good job though, it gave me quite the workout and again the quality is very good. The instructions say TWO people should assemble it but I’m a rule breaker and a stubborn feminist.

Though in full disclosure, once I had assembled the unit it was looking ok but with a few details that were niggling me. The drawers were slightly wonky and with any minimalist item the imperfections become increasingly noticeable. I then took my time and removed the drawers from the main Kabino unit. Noticing that cleverly there’s notches to adjust the drawers keeping them perfectly in line. My fault for not realising and not quite reading the instructions properly, whoops. But now they look perfect and I couldn’t be happier, I think I’ll have some fun styling this up.