How I DIY: Fabric Storage Solution

My first big D.I.Y. project

This was originally posted (in an edited form) on my now defunct other blog Something to Brighten Your Day on 19 August 2010

Over the past year and a half, I have been learning that you can do things for yourself rather than just buy from the box and make that fit.

At the beginning of June I became fed up with my lack of appropriate storage for my studio. After removing all the fabric from my awkward shelves (see before picture) I decided that I needed new ones. I tried to get Ikea shelves to fit my purpose but the Ikea in my city doesn’t allow you to take big items to your car, you have to have someone else to come with you and bring the car to the loading dock – and as all of my family come out in hives when I even mention Ikea, it was never going to happen.

Then came a little bit of thinking and a lot of measuring, I decided that I could use the shelves I had if I could only cut them to size.  I was told, that it wouldn’t work. But I decided to try it anyway. The shelves had become useless to me in their current form.

Here’s the before pic. Please excuse the fact that the image is on it’s side, I had begun to take it apart when I realised that I needed a ‘before’ pic, it would usually be sitting as the direction of the pic suggests.

So I pulled it to pieces so that it was just 4 large boards and 2 small boards and took it to my family’s shed to use the saw to cut the pieces to size.

The short ends were cut shorter and 3 of the long planks were made the same length. The fourth was cut into 3 equal pieces for the smaller shelves.

Below is a shot of the shelves after they the outer frame has been assembled. The little pieces are being balancing to see where they fit.

Next, they were taken apart again and sanded with the electric sander and 2 coats of white paint were applied. It was winter here so this took some time for the paint to dry.

Then it was time for the fantastic blue paint – Dulux Mitchell Blue – to be applied. I think there were 3 coats in all as the roof of the shed turned out not to be waterproof and they got rusty water stains on them.  Luckily there was some nice weather over the weekend in early August and I was able to paint them again and leave them in the sunshine to dry.

The next weekend I put them together (with some help from my awesome Dad) and gave them a re-paint where it was needed and then they were ready to fit into the space I had made for them . They fit with 4mm to spare!

Here they are in all their glory:

Once they were in place I got some plastic tubs from K-Mart to keep all my fabric neat and tidy.

The left fits all my rolls of fabric nicely. The right shelves hold the singer sewing box that was my mum’s (which holds all my bag hardware and notions), and the plastic tubs with assorted fabric on the other shelves.

I’m really happy that they turned out just the way I wanted them to. I know that I will get used for a long time to come. It really helped me to see that I can do these things and that you don’t always have to spend a tonne of money to get what you want. If you look below you can see that the most expensive part were the plastic tubs from K-Mart!

Cost Breakdown:

Timber for shelves: Previous shelves were given to me when they were no longer wanted
White paint: Used from another job
Blue paint: $14 (2 tester 500ml tubs from Bunnings)
Plastic tubs: $28 ($7 each from K-Mart)

Total: $42

What do you think? Not bad for my first attempt at furniture making.

Do you DIY? I’d love to know what you do. Tell me in the comments!