Some Like It Convenient
July 29th, 2008 by ComputerBob
This is another one of my do-it-yourself adventures.
For a few years when I was a kid, our family had a subscription to Popular Science magazine. I loved it — every time I read about some new invention (e.g., the Wankel engine) it felt like I was reading an exciting science fiction novel that was going to come true in the near future.
One of the things that I remember very clearly about PS was a cartoon do-it-yourself page, very simply drawn by a guy named “Doty.” Every month, he would encounter some problem in his household and quickly solve it by building something — a new corner cabinet, a handy aluminum foil dispenser, a hanging rack for pots and pans, etc.). I marveled at the guy’s creativity in thinking up all of that stuff, and I wondered if the real-life Doty really did live in a house full of the clever gadgets that he had built — nowdays, I feel the same way when I watch woodworking craftsman Norm Abrams build one or two copies of a beautiful piece of furniture every week on his “New Yankee Workshop” show on PBS.
Well, I’ve discovered that the older I get, the more “Doty-like” I’m becoming. Regular readers of this Journal know that a few months ago, I completely re-organized our garage by creating several new storage areas, including four different hanging storage areas.
But even after I finished all of that work, I knew that something still wasn’t right. The little shelf that was on the garage wall between our kitchen door and our washer and dryer was in a convenient place, but since it was only 5 1/2 inches deep, we couldn’t really use it for anything. I knew that if I made that shelf deeper and put a raised edge on it, we could rest our groceries on it each time we came home from shopping, which would make it much easier to carry a lot of groceries into the house.
So yesterday and today, I improved that shelf. First, I mounted new, heavy duty shelf supports at a better height, 6 inches lower than the old supports. Then I cut some lumber to make that shelf 13 inches deep and give it a raised edge. I also cut an opening in its back edge for the new electrical conduit that goes down to the new electric outlet that I just added underneath the shelf. And I added a piece of white PVC pipe to hold our extra clothes hangers about 4 feet underneath the 5-foot-wide clothes rack that I built a few months ago, that is just out of the top of the photos. Then I painted the whole shelf with nice shiny white spray enamel. In fact, it’s still drying right now. The conduit looks really old because it’s a really old piece that I salvaged from a different project a couple of years ago. I’ll end up painting it to match the shelf. And tomorrow, I’ll caulk the cracks between the boards to create one large, smooth surface, and then maybe give it one more coat of enamel.
Here’s how it looks so far. I can hardly wait to start using it:
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DIY, Engineering, Images, Personal