It is almost back to school time (20 days) and I am home alone with my 4 kids while my husband is away on business for 2.5 weeks. What is a woman to do? Find a project.
There has always been this weird little nitch in the front "formal living room" that I use as my photo studio. It is only 55 1/4 " wide and 7" deep so nothing I could find would fit there- I usually have a coat rack there- and last year I had my boys' backpacks for school hung there. But... This year my twins are going off to school- which means 4 backpacks. Enter project! I modified the Small Locker Project (http://ana-white.com/2010/08/still-not-locker.html) and built the lockers to 1.) fit the space 2.)to fit their existing shoe baskets that used to be in an Ikea Expedit shelf.
I am soooo pleased with how they turned out.
I built this in pieces- first the bench, then the dividers and backing, and then the cubbies above. I built it using 1/2 in birch veneer plywood (that happens to be Purebond) from home depot. I had Home Depot cut the wood (which I normally do for the easiness factor- but this time it was a mistake. My favorite cutting guy was on vacation and I wanted to start now so I let Moose cut it. So not a good idea. One piece was 15" wide at one end and 15 1/4 " at the other... I gave him a cutting guide, hello?
Good thing I have my own table saw so I could fix it. (from when I built my girls beds: http://ana-white.com/2010/05/plans/corner-unit-twin-storage-bed)
I sanded and stained the wood with custom stain from Sherwin Williams. I then gave it 3 coats of waterbased Poly .(sanding between each one)
Then I glued and nailed it together (for the record, 1/2 plywood is harder to shoot nails into- just sayin')
Then I had the wood cut for the dividers and back (sand, stain, poly, glue and nail, install)
Finally the cubbies at the top: (sand stain, poly glue and nail, install)
After that I put on the trim so now I have a built in lockers for my kids- their backpacks and shoe baskets fit exactly, and there is room for when they grow for the backpack hooks to move up. I plan to use chalkboard vinyl to put their names above the hooks. Thanks Ana again for inspiring me!!!!!!
