Painted Therapy: Custom Work Bench

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Custom Work Bench

I hate the mess of my garage. This is what I've been working with : a piece of plywood propped on two saw horses, with loads of supplies taking up every last inch of space.

I was beginning to wonder why I didn't want to go into the garage, what I hoped would be my haven after a crazy day of singing the ABC's with my 3 year old and giving chemo treatments to my 6 year old with leukemia.

Then it dawned on me: I'm not organized!!! I start to get the shakes if things are not in their place. So, I began to dream up my perfect work bench, one place where I can store my main necessities.

I don't work well without plans. So I checked out Ana White's site (my go to girl) to see if she had anything resembling my inspiration. Nope. Of course it dawned on me too late to contact Ana herself to help me. But when I thought about it, I realized that it was basically a box. Just start with a box. So I checked out a few of Ana's plans that started out as a box and went from there.

Here she is in all her painted glory:

I knew I wanted drawers on one side and shelves on the other. As I went along I decided to add a few contained shelves on the side of the bench to store the wood glue, wax, and other smaller items. On the other side of the bench (because I HAVE to make use of all space), I saved the cans from some crushed tomatoes I had used to make a sauce, and used some hose clamps to keep them in place. I keep all my brushes in these babies. I made the shelves adjustable and decided that looking at the back of the drawers was undesirable, so I purchased a $5 curtain and stapled it in place to hang behind the shelves hiding the drawers -- so girly! Gotta have that little feminine flavor to my work bench (as if the color didn't do it enough).

And there is my $5 curtain staples behind the shelves

The cans make the brushes easily accessible

Used cubby organizers for the drawers -- works perfectly!

I used different wood I had hanging around to trim out the door

The drawers were the biggest hassle because I made a very bad builder mistake. I rushed them and don't even think I took out a square once to make them. Bad builder. Bad, bad, BAD BUILDER!! I was tired and was in such a hurry to finish this bench so I could get organized and the shakes would stop. So, in the end, the drawers don't work perfectly and I'm constantly reminded of my shortcut every time I open them. (And every time my husband reminds me as he helped me with the drawer slides and cursed the whole time.) Each drawer is trimmed out differently as I was just using the different wood and choices I had laying around. The knobs were a great flea market find at 25 cents a pop.

For the paint, I created my own mixture. A little of this, a little of that. I just wanted the piece to "pop" and add that Debbie touch to the garage. I thought I would try Annie Sloan's dark wax around the edges of the drawers and under the knobs for a "dirty and worn look" and I think I achieved it. Adding casters to the base was a no-brainer as I needed this work space to be mobile.

In the end, I love her. I'm organized, or as organized as I can be right now. Besides my power tools, I have everything at my fingertips. And if the garage becomes a mess again, I know it won't be because my stuff doesn't have a home. And with this paint color, I'll be able to find her no problem. :)