{Tutorial} Modular Shelves

Here is the third blog post from the construction of the craft room! Mr. Woodsy has written a tutorial on how to make modular shelves for just about any space. These just happened to be made for my craft room! 

Without further ado... here is Mr. Woodsy to walk you through building modular shelves.

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Measure the area where you will be installing the shelving. Next, get an inventory of materials or products that you will be storing on the shelves. Draw up plans of how you want it to look.

For the shelves I glued and then nailed all joints. I only glued the vertical dividers that lined up on the top shelves with the other vertical dividers. Make sure you clamp all joints and all of you corners are square. 

Once the glue is dry remove clamps and use wood filler to fill nail holes or other imperfections in the wood. Typically, I wait a day until the wood filler is dry. Then I'll start sanding all the shelves with 150 grit sand paper. After I've sanded with the 150 grit sand paper I'll run the sander over the shelves again with at least 250 grit to get a smooth finish. 

 For the backing of the shelving make sure all joints and boards sit flat, so once you install the bead board you don't have gaps between the shelving and the bead board. This will help with the instillation of the shelving and it will sit flat to the wall. Because I don't own a jointer I used a rasp and a hand planer to fix the uneven sections of the shelves.

If you want to paint your shelves, do it now before the backing is installed. I used two coats of flat white pant followed by two coats of Poly-Acrylic (painted on with a brush and not a roller).  

Prior to hanging the shelves I installed a ¾ by ¾ inch wood brace to the top and bottom of the shelves that I glued and nailed directly onto them. (*After hanging the shelves I wish I would have cut to the inside dimension then nailed and glued the braces on the inside of the shelving unit.) 

Locate and mark your studs for a secure fix to the wall.

Figure out the best placement and height for your new shelving. Standard height is 16 inches (I'm thinking that's the magic number).

That's right... Mrs. Woodsy helped out.  She had to help hold up the shelves while I decided whether or not I liked the distance from the desk to the shelves! 

Once you decide on your height all you have left is to drill your holes, install anchors, and screw it to the wall. 

(Ribbon rack to the left and stamp rack to the right.) 

For my stamp shelves, I needed the shelves to be only a few inches apart. I also set it up, so the spacing would get larger toward the top (for larger items). I measured the space of my area, and cut strips of ¾ inch pine to 3-1/2 inches two for my vertical sides and two for my horizontal pieces top and bottom. Once I had the rectangle box shape, I took the inside dimension and divided that by the spacing I wanted of 3 inch shelves. This gave my spacing for how many shelves I would need to cut.

Remember to subtract the 3/8 inch thickness for each shelf that you install. I cut my 3/8 inch BC plywood shelves (8) @ 3-1/2 inch depth and the width, whatever the size of your box and 3/4 inch to the length of the shelf (3/8" each side) if you want them to be removable. If not just cut it to the inside dimensional width and glue and nail.

Next take the vertical pieces mark out the spacing of the shelves then take those boards either to the router table or the table saw with a 3/8 inch bit or dado blade, and cut the shelving slots. Now check your slots for easy install and removal. Your almost done; just glue and nail the sides and the top, and the bottom using a butt joint, and install a backing if desired. Always paint the shelves prior to installing backing. I used bead board measured to the exterior dimensions of the rectangle box and pin nailed to the back of the shelf.

 Hang the shelf on the wall, and fill it with stamps. 

When Mrs. Woodsy wasn't taking pictures she was sitting in the chair with Lola, comforting her, and (pretending to) manage the project. 

Here is what the finished shelves look like. 

And a few month's later... the shelves are all filled up! 

Ribbon Rack {Tutorial}

Once again, we are debuting a new item from our custom craft room that Mr. Woodsy constructed last year! Today we will show you how to build your own ribbon rack! Originally, I wanted this measly ribbon rack and shelving unit at Michael's. I brought Mr. Woodsy to Michael's to see it, and as soon as he saw it he said he could build one that was bigger and better for a fraction of the cost. I took him up on his offer, and voila! He came up with an 8 row ribbon rack! Once again, Mr. Woodsy has put together a brief tutorial on how to make your own ribbon rack. Remember, there are a wide variety of ways to make your own ribbon rack, this is just the approach he used! If you have questions, please don't hesitate to email us! 

For the ribbon rack I made a simple rectangular box with glued and nailed butt joints. You can personalize your ribbon rack to whatever size you wish, but remember to watch the length. If it's too long you might need to add a center vertical support for the dowels. The length of my dowels were 13.5”, if it's to long the dowels will bow. 

The length of the box on the inside is 13” so a ¼’ of dowel gets inserted in to the slots. As for the slots, I clamped the two sides together got an average size of the spools of ribbon (4  ½”) and divided the by the height of my box.  That gave me the amount of slots the I needed to route out.

I used a 3/8” upspiral bit to cut out each of the slots to the center of each of the side boards. Then I cut a 3/8” down cut to hold each dowel in place once mounted. 

*Pictured to the left is the ribbon rack and the right is the stamp rack*
I added bead board to the back of the rack for support and a little extra detail. Since we wanted all the furniture built for the craft room white, we painted the ribbon rack. I used a basic white water-based paint followed by a coat of water-based semi-gloss polyacryclic finish. *I did 2 coats of both white and polyacrylic. You can roll the white paint on but in order to get a smooth finish you must brush the polyacrylic on. 

Getting ready to nail the shelf in place. What is not pictured is the support brackets I made. It's up to you by the way you want to hang it. It should be wide enough to hit two studs in the wall if you want to hang it free standing. I didn't use that instead I used a scrap piece of wood that I mounted to the bottom and top (1 x 1). They were glued and nailed to the top and bottom of the rack. I then anchored and placed 2 screws in to the top and bottom parts of the wall. 

A few "test" rolls of ribbon on the rack... little did Mr. Woodsy know I would fill up the whole rack in no time! 

Here is what the ribbon rack looks like almost filled up! 

An upclose look of what the ribbon rack looks like filled. 

Paper Rack {mini-tutorial}

Featured on: Craft Gossip

Months after completion we are finally going to start rolling out our various post on our craft room make over. If you remember back in October, I gave a sneak peak of the desk that Mr. Woodsy built. 

Today, we are going to unveil the amazing (8 foot 3 inch tall) paper rack that Mr. Woodsy built for the craft room. Prior to the completion of the craft room I had boxes and boxes of paper, and most of the times I would go out and by new paper rather than sift through the endless boxes of paper. This was until I had an awesome storage solution. One of my goals with building the craft room was to have a paper storage area. I needed to be able to easily see all the paper I have. This is not going to be the most complete tutorial--more like a bare bones this is what you need to do to construct a paper rack kind of tutorial (since it's taken me months to get Mr. Woodsy to write a paragraph about how he built this monstrosity). If you have questions, please feel free to email us, and we will attempt to answer your questions! We did not find plans for this paper rack online. Mr. Woodsy drew them up himself and created this masterpiece himself! 

I used ½" MDF to create the cabinet section, the size of my cabinet was 13” w x 13”d x 93” h. I then clamped the two pieces together to create one consistent board (so I could dado cut into the mdf so that the shelves can be removed if needed).

I took a scrap piece of MDF to practice my dado cuts prior to starting on the real thing. 

I used scrap wood as my guide to keep straight lines. I spaced the shelves so I would get 2” spacings. Remember to account for the thickness of the shelves, I used a 5mm backing laun for my shelves. I dado cut the sides of the cabinet, so the shelves can be removed. I clamped both sides together measured down 3” for the face plate and 3” up for the kick plate.

Then I made marks every 2 ¼” put my straight edge across the sides and used my router with a ¼” upspiral bit to dado the ½” MDF to accomidate for the shelves. Each dado cut was ¼” in depth for the shelf to sit. *Remember to add a ½” to your 13” shelves.

After all the shelves are cut, just glue then nail the sides and top together. I also glued one of the center shelves to give the cabinet some support. Then added a 1/2" MDF board for the  backing of the cabinet. (*Yes the paper rack went all the way up to our attics door!)

 A close up picture of the rack prior to being painted. 

Since we wanted all the furniture built for the craft room white, we decided to paint the paper rack. I used a basic white water-based paint followed by a coat water-based semi-gloss polyacryclic finish. *I did 2 coats of both white and polyacrylic. You can roll the white paint on but in order to get a smooth finish you must brush the polyacrylic on. 

Mr. Woodsy rolling on white paint. 

Once the paint dried, move in your paper rack, and slide in all the shelves. 

*These pictures were taken right after moving in the paper rack from the garage. Mr. Woodsy did not think I'd be able to fill the paper rack--I easily proved him wrong! 

Every shelf is filled to the brim with paper and I'm now banned from buying any new paper!

 

{Sneak Peak} Craft Room Desk

This past Sunday marked a BIG day in our house!!! Jon (my husband) did a test run on the desk he's been working on for the past month. For those of you who don't know I have been dreaming about my own craft room (who hasn't?) since the day we purchased our house (last August), and Jon started working on plans late spring. After hours and hours of "planning meetings" we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! 

When he brought the three pieces in from the garage (plus the cabinet on the end) I almost fainted with joy!!! I'm sooooo in love with the desk even with it not being finished! I must admit I've gone against his will since he did not want anyone to see a sneak peak. He doesn't like to unveil his work until it's 100% complete, but I'm beaming with joy and pride and can't resist! So proud of his amazing talents and hard work, and can't wait for this desk to be completed! Have I mentioned that I can't wait for it to be completed?  And of course I can't wait to share with our readers the finished product!

Pictured above is the woodworker himself, Jon, testing out the new desk.

Side note: The desk is currently being sanded and painting will start this weekend. The desk will be painted white to go along with the massive bookcase on the other side of the room (not pictured) and the beautiful file cabinet make-over that I did last month. The wood, 3 drawer cabinet (on the end of the desk) was a clearance find at Home Depot one Saturday afternoon. Originally marked at over $300 we scored it for $30! At the time we didn't know where it was going, but we knew we needed to purchase it. 

So, what does everyone think so far?