Turn a closet door into easy storage

I'm always on the hunt for ways to make things around the house more organized.  In fact it makes me a little nuts when all of our belongings don't seem to have a place to be put away.  The front entry of our home as been an issue for me, because of this.  Coming home from school, the school bags and shoes get dropped a foot inside the front door, and then we spend the rest of the day hurdling over them to get in and out.  We have this nice closet right next to the front door, but for some reason opening the door to put these things away just doesn't happen.\

So I decided I wanted a shelf for shoes, book bags, hats, car keys, etc.  But I didn't want to lose the closet storage and I didn't want the shelf sticking out into the entry way (taking up space) so I created a hinged shelf.

 

I started with just an ordinary closet.  The door in place right now is just a crappy, hollow core door.  First I removed the door.  If you just wanted to take out the door and swap it for another one, you could lift out the hinge pins.  But we need the hole apparatus gone, so pull out your screw driver and remove the screws holding the hinge to the door frame.

Next you need to remove the door stop.  This is the thin piece of wood (approximately 1.5 inches wide and 1/2 inch deep that is nailed into the middle of the door frame.  It keeps the door from over closing.  But for this project it's going to get in the way, so it needs to go.

A cat's paw, or pry bar removes this quickly.  For mine it left behind some of the nails that must have been nailed into it from the other side of the door frame.  I don't want these scratching me or my kids when they get into the closet, so best to use a hammer and pound those back into the frame.

Finally, remove the trim around the door.  Our house was nicely equipped with the cheapest, crappiest trim so it certainly doesn't hurt my feelings when I have a chance to remove more of this.  First run your utility knife around the edge where this meets the rest of the frame to make it easier to remove it, and then use your pry bar to get under it and remove it with little-to-no damage to the wall and door frame.

The door frame is now ready for the shelf to go in,  I have, in the past, used solid wood shelves that I found an unfinished furniture stores.  But we don't have one of those near us now.  And I also really wanted the shelf to be a close fit to the door opening, so I built the shelf to fit this particular spot.  When measuring the shelf you want to use, first measure the width of the door opening.  You then need to be sure that the distance (on your shelf) between the front right corner and the back left corner is no bigger than this... allowing extra room for a hinge (so add about 1/2 inch) to the diagonal measurement of your shelf.  The reason to check this measurement, is when the shelf is installed and you wish to swing the shelf/door open to access the closet, the back corner farthest away from the hinge side is going to have to be able to clear the door frame.  Measure wrong, and you'll be stuck with a shelf that won't swing open, it will just be stuck in the door frame.

I built this shelf using some stock pine (it's a little naughty... hahaha, knotty) which is about 3/4" thick.  I used rabet joints to hold the shelves in place because it's super sturdy.  For the back I grabbed some beadboard wall panels.  You don't have to build the shelf yourself, but I do recommend solid wood as particle board shelves just don't seem to hold up as well over time.

The next step was to attach the hinges and install the shelf.  The door I removed only had 2 hinges.  For this I like the security of 3 hinges just because this thing is a lot heavier than that crappy "builder's special" hollow core door.  If you grab a set of hinges from Home Depot, make sure you grab some longer screws.  The "included" screws will work great for attaching the hinge to the shelf, but you really need something longer for the side of the hinge that attaches to the door frame because you want to send the screws past the door frame and into the wall studs for added stability/strength.

Once the shelf is in place, be sure to test it to make sure it closes all the way and when open the door doesn't move.  A door that keeps trying to close or keeps trying to open is a sign of a door that is not well hung.  As long as the shelf moves freely you can move to the next step of trim.

You can see in this picture that I have added some 1/4" thick plywood as the initial trim around the door.  This replaces the old crappy trim and has a flat surface so that nothing will get in the way of the shelf opening.  The low profile trim is also put into place to balance the trim on the left side of the door, aesthetically speaking.  You can also see in this picture that the trim around the shelf on the hinge side has a 45-degree angle.  This is done so that the door can swing open wider than if the edge was squared.  

Trim was added to the bottom and sides of the shelf piece, in addition to the angled piece shown above.  The trim pieces were quite wide because there were large gaps between the shelf and the wall on the top and the left side, that needed to be covered.  While trim could normally be nailed in place, these large pieces seemed to need a little more strength, but I didn't want them looking gaudy with big screws hanging out.  For this trim, I chose to use a counter-sink drill bit, and wood plugs to conceal the screws.

The countersink drill bit not only drills a pilot hole for the screw (to prevent splitting wood), but then removes more wood so that the screw head can be recessed deeper into the wood.  Premade plugs are available that fit right into this hole, or you can buy a plug cutter which is great if you want to make your own plugs out of the wood you are using.

So drill your hole, screw the trim in place, insert the plug and then sand the area until smooth.  Then paint away, or stain, whatever you wish.

The final steps with the shelf may vary depending upon how well your shelf is working and how much weight you intend to place on your shelf.

I fear my two boys will take turns climbing on the shelf at some point.  So I chose to install an anti-sag gate thingie.  This has 2 brackets, that you install at the upper corner closest to the hinges and the lower corner farthest from the hinges.  Then they are attached with a length of wire rope and a turnbuckle.  The turnbuckle allows you to twist it and tighten up the wire rope as needed to keep that lower corner from sagging over time.

I also installed a coat rack on the back of the shelf so the boys would have a spot for their jackets.  Make sure you do this after installing that anti-sag thing.

 

I also needed to create a mechanism to help the shelf close flush against the frame.  There was a slight twist in the top of the shelf that made it so that when the shelf closed, there was a 1/2" gap between the shelf and the frame at the top.  For this I used a gate latch, and then I created a cleat with a slight dip in it.  This allows the gate latch to run up this cleat and rest in the depression - thus keeping the top tighter against the frame - while still allowing the shelf to open easily.  Genius!

A few accessories later, and the shelf was done and ready for action.  Now I just have to convince my boys that they want to put their things on it... instead of dropping their gear in front of it.

 

Sweet Organization in a Pretty Package

Today's project was the long-overdue construction of a new drawer to go in this spot in our entertainment center.  Pictured below is what is hidden behind the drawer and you can sort of see that the addition of an xbox one (at Christmas) has overloaded our current space.  Kind of makes it look like the game drawer threw up all over the place.  It makes me a little nuts when things don't have a place to be put away.

So the things I had to keep in mind were that the drawer couldn't fill the enter opening in the cabinet, because we needed the room for the power strip and cords at the back.  Pictured below is the drawer that had bee in that spot.  It was just deep enough to fit DVD's and clearly was sucking at that too, as we had acquired more of them, and that meant that the new ones were just hap-hazardly stacked on top of the ones nestled in the drawer.  We also weren't taking full advantage of the available space.  I think when I built that drawer I wasn't sure how much room we would need for the cords, and so I was a bit too generous in allowing tons of extra room at the back of the cabinet.  Time to take back the space. 

Next step was to draw up my plans.  I don't always do this.  Sometimes I just wing it and guess as I go along.  When I wing it, I usually regret it, and end up with lots of fancy firewood.  So take the time and draw up your design.  I know I have 27 3/4-inches wide, 9 1/2 inches tall and 17 inches deep to work with (took those measurements directly from the cabinet.  Since I still need to leave some room for the cables in the back, the drawer can be no deeper than 12 1/2 inches (leaving 4 1/2 inches for cords/cables).  To find the width of the drawer, this will be dependent upon the kind of drawer slide you pick up.  I used some that look like this (cheap-o standard drawer slide).  We don't need anything fancy for this project, and these are readily available at Home Depot and Lowe's.  Those place also have some drawer slides that have ball-bearings and claim to be self-closing (they look like this).  Those things are total junk, and I would avoid the hassle.  They're harder to install, and I suppose when they say "self"-closing they mean I will close them myself... because they don't do jack.  If you want really nice drawer slides that are self-closing and top of the line go for the Blum Blumotion kind (they look like this) and are absolutely amazing (and concealed on the bottom of the drawer).  I installed those in my kitchen... but I'm digressing.  The reason you need to know what you're using for drawer slides, is because the width of your drawer will be a little different depending upon what slide you choose.  The cheap ones I picked up and the crap self-closing ones both need about 1/2 inch clearance on either side of the drawer, whereas the sweet-ass Blum variety will need 3/8-inch.  So you'll see in my drawing, I made the width of the bottom drawer (the bigger drawer) 1 inch narrower than the opening (1/2 inch on the left + 1/2 inch on the right = 1 inch).  For the depth of the drawer measurement, you want the total depth and then subtract from that 3/8 inch at the front and back (3/8 + 3/8 = 3/4).  You're going to have overlap between the front and back drawers and the sides when we go to make the dovetails, which will eat up all but 3/8 inch on the depth on the front and the same on the back - so subtracting this from the total depth of your desired drawer will tell you how long to make the sides.

If you're only doing a simple drawer, then you don't need to know the rest of this.  But I cannot seem to do anything in a simple way... so naturally I decided I wanted a smaller drawer that nestled inside and extended above the bottom drawer.  This way I could have storage for the DVD's below, and storage for whatever I wanted above that.  You may find this super handy if you have really deep drawers in other places, because a lot of that depth becomes wasted space.  The first step for making this work, was to be sure to allow for room for the DVD's to fit, so the depth of the drawer had to allow for at least 5 1/2 inches before running into the top drawer.  I had 7 inches of height to work with, 1/4 inch will be lost on the bottom for the drawer bottom, this means I could eat up 1 1/4 inches at the top of the drawer where the smaller drawer would fit into it.  So I cut the back piece 1 1/4 inches shorter than that front.  This allows the smaller drawer to slide backwards out of the bottom drawer.  

To make the pieces for the upper drawer, I took the width of the bottom drawer, subtracted 1/2 inch + 1/2 inch (this is the thickness of my wood) to tell me what the inside measurements of the bottom drawer were.  Then I subtracted another 1 inch to allow for the drawer slides that would go with this drawer.

With my design in mind, I went out and cut my wood.

I cut the basic pieces I needed and then laid them out on the floor (this will be essential when we get to making the dovetails.  So what you're looking at are the two separate drawers, laid out so that we are seeing the inside face of each piece.

Next step is to cut the rabbet in the bottom edge of each piece.  My base is 1/4 inch thick.  I could pull out my rabbet/dado blade set that makes quick work of cutting this groove.  These blades have 2 cutting blades and then you sandwich chipping blades and spacers in between them based upon how wide the dado or rabbet needs to be.  For such a narrow cut, I just make one pass with my regular blade (which knocks off 1/8 inch) and then move the blade over and make another pass to get to 1/4 inch.

I don't like using the rabbet cut, as explained below.  It's not a very strong way to attach the bottom to the drawer, and whenever I make something that two boys will be "testing" I want it as strong as possible.  But I have a finite amount of space to work with, so I didn't have extra room to do a dado.

So with your rabbet or dado cut, now we can move on to making the dovetails.  For this project I choose to do half-blind dovetails.  That just means that from the front of the drawer you don't see anything aside from a plain piece of wood, but from the side you see the dovetails.  Since I'm going to be attaching a drawer face to this, it doesn't matter if the dovetails go all the way through to the front (for aesthetic reasons) and the drawer is just as strong as this way.

 You will need a router and fluted bit (as opposed to a straight bit).  The fluted bit will make it's cut at a slight diagonal angle.  A straight bit would be used for dovetails that go all the way through and the bit appears, rightly so, straight when you look at it from the side.  I like the Porter Cable router.  It has tons of power and is adaptable to different types of bits - which is more than I can say for the Ryobi one I had kicking around before that.  I'm not saying that Ryobi is a poor tool... it's more of a starter tool and it just wouldn't work for this project, thus showing how inadequate it is at adapting to your needs.  It's one that I don't mind dropping or leaving out in the rain.  ;)

Porter Cable is also the company that makes the dovetail jig that I picked up.  Thought I had taken a picture of it but I guess not.  Here's one I found online.  It has 2 separate jigs (depending upon what model you have).  The bottom one is more making through cuts... so I didn't use that one for the half-blind dovetails.

Now comes the time to make the cuts.  The whole reason I had you lay out your wood looking the way it would ultimately go together, is to make it easier to make these cuts.  Your pieces will be put together with the inside edge facing up (on the front or back piece) and facing out (on the side pieces).  So in the picture below the piece that is perpendicular is the side, and the piece that is meeting it (which is placed in the jig horizontally) is the back.  Then you just fire up the router, slide it along the jig and it makes these fancy finger-like cuts. 

 

If you are using plywood, like I am, you're going to run into some trouble with the wood tearing a bit.  It's unavoidable.  The best dovetails I've made were not done using this type of wood.  The reason we run into this so much with the plywood is because it's an elaborate sandwich of layers of wood, with a nice veneer piece on the outside edges.  With regular wood, it's solid and doesn't react to how we are operating the router, whereas the plywood's veneer sheet is super thin and very delicate.  You can see in the top image that the face of the wood still looks nice, as compared the image below where the veneer is ripped to shreds.

To minimize the amount of tearing, I tried a couple different techniques when cutting and found this to be the most effective, though not perfect.  So pictured below is the motion I used with the router.  So we want the force of the router to tear with the force pushing the nice veneer towards the rest of the plywood.  In the motion on the left, we first cut by moving the router towards the end of the pin, and then slide down the edge of the jig, and finish by pulling out the same when you slide in.  You would then slide down the other edge of the pin, again starting at the end.  In the example to the left, the cut was made by plunging deep into the jig first and then sliding out the edge of the jig.  This puts too much pressure on the veneer and causes it to tear out.  Super confusing to try to describe, but definitely worth doing a couple test pieces first to get a feel for what works best.

With all your pieces cut, you can now put a small dab of glue in the grooves cut in the front or back piece.

Then align the side piece, and using a mallet gently pound the two together.  After cutting them with the jig it will seem odd that they could go together like this, but it really works beautifully. 

Finally you're going to attach the bottom pieces.  If you used a dado cut (groove) then you would want to slide the bottom into place before pounding on the last side piece.  For mine I could attach it last since it was going on the very bottom.  Note - the measurements I wrote for the cutting the bottom pieces were guesses.  I usually will wait until I have the drawer partially assembled to take these measurements so I can be sure it's a perfect fit.  Mine also required a couple small nails and glue to hold in place (whereas the dado cut wouldn't need this).  The nails are more to hold the bottom in place while the glue dries.

Now you can stain or paint your drawer.  I think it would be kind of silly to make such  pretty drawer (dovetails and all) and then cover them with paint), but you can do whatever you wish.  I like this Minwax Polycrylic because it dries super fast and I can clean the brush with soap and water.

The final step is assembly.  I attached the drawer slides to the entertainment center and then to the bottom of the bottom drawer and tested the fit.  Then I did the same, attaching the drawer slides to the bottom of the smaller drawer, and the pieces that would normally go inside the cabinet were attached to the inside edge of the bottom drawer.

One important thing to pay attention to here, is that for the upper drawer, the drawer slides will be installed backwards.  Think about it this way, your bottom drawer will pull out of the cabinet, so you attach the slides to make that happen.  But the smaller drawer will be pulling out of the bottom drawer, moving back into the cabinet with this motion.  So make sure you install the slides in the opposite direction, or else you'll be cursing yourself when you can't slide the small drawer into the bottom drawer.

Then I attached the drawer face, and tested out the set-up.

Worked perfectly.  Bottom drawer extended out and the upper drawer could slide away to access the DVD area.

Added all those unsightly xbox accessories...

And the DVDs.  And the whole thing held up great!  Even more room in the bottom drawer now to fit our extra movies.  :)

Our Chore Chart and Elementary School Commission System

Being done with school for the past 6 months has afforded me the chance to do more pleasure reading and catch up on non-fiction reading that I've been putting off.

Lately I finally read through Dave Ramsey's books, The Total Money Makeover and one of his newer books that he wrote with his daughter, Rachel Cruz - Smart Money, Smart Kids.  I've listened to Dave Ramsey's radio show for quite some time, so the theories weren't new to me, but it was nice to see everything laid out in the book with lots of personal stories to break up the information.

The Smart Money, Smart Kids book was really inspiring too.  I've long watched my two boys often acting as though they deserve to have things handed to them, and I wanted to change that.  It's funny that they could even act entitled to anything, when they've spent so many years of their lives having to hear that "it's not in the budget".  The book gave me lots of great ideas to start incorporating now when they're at the tender young ages of 6 and 8.

The most important idea, for me, in the book was teaching them that money comes from work.  There would be no "allowances", or entitlements.  Instead, we would offer them commission.  We put together a set of chores that could be done each week.  Some on a daily basis and others just 1-2 times per week, and each with a set price tag.  Each day when they completed a chore, they would mark it on the chart and at the end of the week they have to count up what commission they are owed (this is also great for helping them become better at counting money) and then they are paid in cash.

I took a couple pictures of the chart I created and then list of chores we make available, just give others some ideas of how to get started.  I created our chores and put them on magnetic business cards that I had cut in half.  I opted to use just plain paper for the chores themselves because it allowed the magnets to have enough power to stack/stick to each other, thus taking up less space on the fridge.  I made enough magnets for the maximum number of times that each chore could be done each week.

   

If you would like to use the chores I created, you can download the pdf that contains these 4 pages of the chores as seen above.

Then we picked up a dry erase board that measured 14 inches wide x 11 inches tall.  This actually worked out to be a perfect size because there was just enough room for each day to have a space that was exactly as wide as each chore magnet.  There certainly are lots of ways to put a chart together, but I will say after a few months of putting this in place it continues to go amazingly well.

 

We haven't had the most success so far with convincing them to spend, save and give.  My 8 year old does a great job of selecting something he wants to save up for (totally thought he would have been more of a spender than a saver), but then doesn't want to use one cent for anything other than saving up for his goal purchase.  He also doesn't seem to "in to" giving.  We've done a better job of demonstrating giving, by picking up some non-perishable foods to give to a food drive or donating out-grown clothing to the thrift store, but neither of them really want to part with the money they worked hard to earn.  I'm sure with gentle persuasion it will come.

It certainly has stopped a lot of crying and whining fits that used to result when they were denied something that they felt they really needed to have.  We had an instance of this about a month ago.  My 8 year old had seen a pair of shoes someone else got, and desperately wanted a pair.  I told him we had just bought him shoes and that we were not spending more money on shoes for him when he hadn't outgrown his and simply didn't need them.  He threw a momentary tantrum and then he decided he would print out a picture of the shoes he wanted, and would do extra chores to save up for them.  After a month of hard work, and with a generous holiday gift card, he was able to purchase the shoes himself.

There are a few things that money cannot buy, and one of them is the look of pure delight and satisfaction when his dedication has enabled him to purchase something he wants that we were not willing to provide for him.