Easy Woodworking Projects

-- For the OCD Converted --

If you read Woodworking Tips: Cabinets we’re on the same page. If not here’s a synopsis of the previous article.

A man and his neat freak wife co-existing in a garage. The man needs serious help with his messiness; one day a light goes off and he becomes the OCD King of woodworking projects.  With the building of three cabinets his life changes forever, but he still only has a 6’ x3’ work bench.

Folding Work Bench for Added Space

The problem is space. After watching an old movie one day I realized that I could build a fairly strong folding work bench with the use of some cheap hardware. I expanded out some plans for a cutting board I had and modified it to be a 4’ x 3’ monstrosity. The glue took forever to dry, but the aesthetic effect was astounding.

So what do you do with a three foot long cutting board? By using some door hinges, I mounted one end of mine on the wall. Using a latch commonly found on a screen door I was able to secure it to the wall relatively easy. For legs I used a couple of door hinges and attached some 4x4 stock I had lying around. The result was a second bench that I can use for a place to let glue dry or whatever. The beauty is that it folds right up with no effort, allowing my wife to bring in the groceries.

Mail Box

Another project I really liked was for the kitchen. What started as a way to keep the mail off of the top of the microwave turned into a three week R&D session with the entire family (in laws included) involved.

Everyone had a microwave in their life. By this I mean a place where mail gets tossed and forgotten about. The problem we always had was that sometimes the important stuff gets tossed up there with the fliers and junk mail.

What I did was build a nice 20” x 5” x 10” and added 5 upright 1” x 4” dividers so that we could easily slide the bills in and be able to find them more easily. I mounted it by the back door; that didn’t work. I moved it to the wall over the microwave; she’s not havin’ it. Finally I asked, “why won’t you use my cool little mail inbox?” The reply floored me “Is that what that is?”

Dejected, I took down the box, and pulled out the wood burning kit I got as a child, but seldom used. A few hours later I burned the word “MAIL” into my cool little box and put it back over the microwave; still nothing. Remembering the cabinet, I pulled it down, stained it and sealed it all up with a nice polyurethane coat. We have mail OVER the microwave now. 

I suppose my OCD has gotten better since then, but the thing is it has led to adding a lot more organization around the house, something that was desperately needed.

All  of our shoes have shoe racks and a nice stair-step bench/shoe rack is by the back door for guests to take of their clod-hoppers before they proceed past the linoleum.

Linoleum!?  Eureka!  A nice wood floor in the kitchen would be great……