Life and Drawers

I mentioned yesterday that life had been a run-away train. Between the house, husband, dog, work, and church, it's a wonder I actually have time to watch TV :) It's about to get a little crazier, too. I don't remember if I mentioned this or not on the blog, but I'm going back to school. The state of Kentucky requires me to have 15 hours towards a Masters to keep my teaching certificate current. I have until next year to get that done. Tomorrow, I will begin my first summer course (yeah, a summer term that starts in April. Whatever). Luckily, I only have to be on campus the first day and the rest is online. For the second summer session, things will get very interesting as I'm taking 2 classes and I'm not sure how much will be online vs. on campus. BTW, I'm obviously getting a Masters in Education, but I will take a few additional hours to have an endorsement as a Reading/Writing Specialist. I'm happy to have a conversation about why!

Anyway, I told you all that so that I can be even more excited to show off my latest project:

No, I did not built that entire thing. No that is not one solid piece. The top section is actually half of a pair of bookshelves my daddy built me when I was little. We've had them stacked on top of each other in the office and they held canvas bins with my crafty supplies (I looked for a picture, but I totally can't find one with the bins). When we started plotting what we actually wanted to DO with the office, we took a few measurements. Turns out one on its side measured the same as the walls on either side of the windows. Thing was, they're still only a few feet tall and we've got some high ceilings. Plus, we were utilizing the tops to hold picture albums and scrapbooks. Our solution? Huge drawers. I thought I may be able to make up how to build it. After all, it's a big box with one side open with another, slightly smaller box without a top stuck inside. However, I felt the need to browse Ana White's plans just in case.

My box is basically the Braden Entryway Drawer Bench, modified for what I needed. I did use 1x12s for the drawer sides and back, but didn't do essentially steps 3 and 4. In step 2, the bottom part is actually at the bottom. Also note, in step 8, she talks about installing the drawer slides, but doesn't include them in the shopping list. The comments also have a few comments about the drawer slides and I agree that a single under-mount is wobbly. I wonder if a side mount would be better? I'll pick up 2 more slides on my semi-weekly trip to Lowe's and go ahead and install 2 for the second drawer and hopefully get around to installing a second in the first (that makes sense, right?).

The rest of the plan includes moving these books to the sideways bookshelves and selling this bookshelf (or at least possibly moving it to the guest room). This wall will get shelves on the wall for my crafty bins and also a secretary-style desk for me to do homework/crafty projects.

This wall will stay relatively unchanged. The lamp will get moved for another drawer/bookshelf unit. The file cabinet and desk/chair will get sold. The drawer on this side will get inserts for hanging files and will hopefully have room to hold old magazines, notebooks, etc.

This gives a better idea of how tall the unit actually is. Not quite as ginormous as it looked at first! Although the drawer measures 29" across and is 23" front to back (deep? wide?)

Room for all of my scrapbooks!

After the second drawer gets built (the rain lately makes it tough to get spread out and saw), the next big project will be a garage work bench and storage!