Shelf support and storage!

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

After getting the shelves put into the laundry room, we knew we needed to get a support underneath the larger shelf between the washer and dryer, because it wasn't completely stable and the boards would start sagging otherwise.  Originally, it was just going to be a bracket type of support, but as we continued to think about it, we realized there was enough space there for some storage as well.

Of course I love storage, so I was all in for that plan.

Once we decided on that, D.Soup couldn't think about anything else.  So a few nights later after L.Soup was in bed, we mosied down to the basement and got to work.  The plan came from D.Soup's brain, and we're not master pattern makers or anything, so it's not a finished piece by any means.   But it will be perfect for between the two machines.

We knew the height to the bottom of the shelf was 37", and the space between the two machines was 13".  We had some spare 2x4's hanging around that would be the perfect skeleton...

Testing out the Kreg Jig.

We wanted to do a trial run on the Kreg Jig before my bedside table building session, and I also didn't want to be able to see any screws in the finished product.  After a few rounds of listening to D.Soup grumble about not understanding what he was supposed to be doing, I found a "how to use the Kreg Jig" instruction blog post.  Things seemed to go much more smoothly after that.

One side

Box Shape

Leveling out the last piece

We didn't have any plywood, so we picked some up the next day when we took our trip to the hardware store.  Unfortunately, D.Soup didn't account for the width of the plywood when measuring for size, so there is no space to put outside walls up that we had intended on doing.  I'm planning on getting baskets to use for storing things anyway, so the walls probably aren't completely necessary.

All done!

The more I look at it, the more I think we should have put the front 2x4 in the middle the other way, to allow that bottom shelf to have a little more space in the front.  It's easily fixable, but we'll see if it actually happens.

A few days later, we decided to put the cat door in, and finish up all the goals for the laundry room right now.  I sat on the floor in the hallway with my hands over L.Soup's ears while D.Soup cut a hole in the bottom of the door.  She's basically terrified of anything that makes a loud noise (except herself).  So whenever possible I try to let her experience loud noises from the protection of my (or her father's) arms.  It seems to be helping her get more and more brave around things she shouldn't be scared of.  Like a screwdriver.  Or the vacuum.

Bonus!

I'm so happy things are getting done around here.