Easy Wooden Under The Table Cart

Even though the cold weather is evidently 'NOT' going anywhere soon, I just had to do some wood projects and one of which was how to figure out a good and easy solution to storing my girls Melissa and Doug wooden toys they got for Christmas.

Since Christmas day, the such toys in question, have been kept under my coffee table, begging for a better home.

But with the lack of space, the only solution was to keep them where they were (as the girls always use the coffee table as their base to set up the wooden farm and village)

What could I use? A basket, nope - been there, done that! - Didn't like that option or just leave them as is or something else - I chose the latter.

After mulling over what I could make, without making too much mess with my jigsaw - I took some measurements and got out some wood bedside edges and got to work making a shallow under table cart. It had to be shallow, for the girls to SEE their toys and be able to access them without my help.

Here are the 2 wood bedsides, I got for $2 each!!

I mark where to cut. I needed 3 same lengths for the bottom.

And one of the same length, but cut down the middle for the side and 2 smaller for the top & bottom

Those pieces were to make a rectangle - these will be my sides.

Then, using liquid nails, I glued the bottom & tops to each of the sides. Then, using wood screws, I screwed them into place.

Leave to dry. This is what you will screw your base too.

I cut 2 narrower pieces, of wood to attach to the frame. Glue in place using liquid nails

And for extra strength, Nail down.

Do the same on both sides. Give them a good sanding down, I actually made sure the corners, were sanded down to a rounded edge. 

The using the 3 pieces of wood, I attached those on top of the narrow wooden pieces.

I used nails and wood screws to secure them. Using Krylon  White Primer and Paint, Give it a couple of light coats.

I had some left over paint from making my Bathroom Magazine / Toilet Paper Holder and thought that would work just fine, as it will match my Coffee Table, I refurbished last year.

I gave it 3 light coats using the leftover paint.Then once dried I used some Valspar Antiquing Glaze to give it finished look to match the coffee table

Now came the super easy part :)

Attaching the dolly wheels. I choose to use ones that only went forward and back. Knowing all to well my girls will pull out the wooden toys and use the cart for their own fun uses :)

I picked the dolly wheels from a local hardware store - these actually cost the most, at $4 bucks each.

I attached them at either end.

( As you can tell from the leg standing in the picture above, Carys was kind enough,  to give my work the strength test, by standing on it)

Now if you look close enough, you can see my wood work is NOT perfect. But who cares! It's only gonna get dinged up.

I attached a handle to each side.

I got these handle from Hobby Lobby when they were 40% off.

Then here you have it.

My

Easy Wooden Under The Table Cart

Which most certainly does the job of keeping the girls wood toys all neat and tidy, even if it's only when they go to bed at night LOL

  

Not only do I love it, so do my little tinkers, Seren & Carys. 

They think it makes the most wonderful ride :)

All neatly tucked away under the coffee table, ready for another day of play.

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Bathroom Shelf.

A Rustic, Shabby Chic Bathroom Shelf.














Our towel rail was plain and boring, and our bathroom had little appeal to it and needed some help. With being limited to what I can do, in our student housing..... I tried to work with what I had.

I had picked up some timber from our local 'Ace Hardware' store, with the intention to make an extra shelf to store our toothbrushes and the items we used the most.

I started by measuring how big, I wanted the shelf to be, and it had to be small enough to be able to close the bathroom door, without it getting in the way.

I measured the wood & made my cuts, Three equal lengths to make the sides & bottom, Then sanded down the edges, but not too much as I wanted it to look aged and weathered.

Here is the wood pieces, making sure they were the right fit.

Next I turned them over,  lined them up and pre-drilled holes for the screws.

Next I cut my pieces  & sanded that will go inside of the shelf, to make the dividers and the two end pieces.

The edges are quite rough, but I will sand them down with my electric sander. You can see in the picture below the dividers ready to have a dry test run.

They fit perfectly. I took them out and set them to the side.

Flipping the whole shelf so that the bottom faced up, I nailed through where I wanted the dividers to go.

Here you can see the nail poking through, then I placed the divider over the nail, pushing it down hard, then flipped the shelf back over & hammered the nail all the way in.







Next, I nailed the sides to hold the dividers in place - doing it on both sides.

I sanded the whole shelf, but not too much,

 As I wanted to keep the roughness to it. I wanted the weathered look.

Next I had, some cheaper $1 white & black spray paints from Walmart. I used this as my primer. Giving it three coats of black first, then once that had dried, then did the same using the white paint. ( I somehow lost the picture of the black paint on the shelf)

In this you can see the black peeking through. I sanded it lightly around the edges.

I'd purchased a towel rail from Walmart for $10 - I laid the template down on the underside of my shelf & made the marks where the rail was to go.

Measured to make sure the bar fit perfectly, then I drilled the fixings in place.

Make sure you screw the tightening screw to hold the ends in place, otherwise you'll have a wobbly towel rail.

I added some D-Rings on the back to hang it up. 

Here I had some matching Drawer handles left over from making my Clock Wall Hanging, I used 3 on my shelf.

Here is our, new Bathroom Shelf with Towel Rail !!! I love the finished project.

Now we have a place to hold our toothbrushes, without knocking them off the sink the whole time. I love how it turned out. It matches the Wall Clocking Hanging.

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