Then we can either pop open the top compartment which will be good for storing cables, cords, scissors, stamps and more (it stays closed thanks to a magnetic strip)… I promised close-ups of the file storage boxes so here’s a pic illustrating that we achieved our goal of making it easy to slide the boxes out and actually access our files.
Stay tuned for those accessorizing details in the coming weeks (for now we’re tackling the big things like larger storage, toy corralling, art, etc).īut back to the action under the desk.
Plus, because it’s deep enough to store those big scrapbook sheets it creates a nice wide surface on top for us to place other items that we like to have on hand. It’s actually intended to be used as storage for scrapbooking, but we liked that its shelves were a great size for our notebooks, bills to pay, and even the books that we’re currently reading. It’s another little file system that we also picked up at Target. You’re probably noticing something else in that pic, sitting on the desk itself. Instead, we opted to paint it the same soft aqua that we used on the back of the bookcase (Mythic’s Adanna Aire).
#11X17 FILE STORAGE FREE#
We brought it in unfinished because (1) I wanted to make sure I had measured everything correctly and (2) we weren’t quite sure whether we wanted to paint it white to match the desk or stain it dark to match the chairs (which are free leftovers from our existing dining set, since we substituted two of them for a bench a while back).Īnd once we had it in place… well, we actually decided to toss out both of those ideas. We even left some room on top for a few miscellaneous items like our external hard drive and the radio that we like to listen to from time to time. He was perfectly sized to fit the two file boxes snugly in the bottom opening while the two stacked Ikea storage boxes could be slipped in and out of the cubby above them (with plenty of room for the modem cords in one of those white Ikea storage boxes to feed out the back). About three hours later, I had this little guy: I’ll spare you all of the construction details this time around (just trust me that it was actually quite similar to my desk and shelf building projects). The pieces in this case being two $10 pine boards intended to be stairs (I bought them because I liked the finished-looking rounded edge). Once again I opted to rely on the Kreg Jig (can you tell I’m addicted?) to connect all the pieces. And this time I wanted to create something to optimize our storage and file box sitch.
#11X17 FILE STORAGE FULL#
So with my carpentry mojo still in full force, I decided to tackle another building project. And having to lift the white storage boxes every time we wanted to access the file boxes was a quick way to ensure that we’d never actually use said file boxes. Plus, with two of them side by side they were the beginnings of a perfect spot to stack the white Ikea storage boxes from Sherry’s old office that contain our receipts and our modem (we paid Comcast $28 to move our modem into the office so we’d have the strongest wireless signal in there).īut… it wasn’t the prettiest setup. I’ll give you a close-up of ’em later in the post, but basically they were just about the perfect amount of hanging file storage for us (you know, the kind of boxes that have those rails that hold folders that you can use to label and categorize your papers?). Here they are sitting on the floor of our very much a work-in-progress office a few days ago. So after failing to find a perfectly sized file cabinet at our local thrift stores, we spotted a pair of simple embossed gray file boxes at Target (for just $14.99 a pop) that had our names written all over them.
We made a nice leap forward on the storage front with our hacked Ikea bookcase, but the desk I built was seriously lacking any place to stash papers and such. What I meant to say was “file storage.” And ours is no exception. What’s one thing that every office needs? Bingo – a lava lamp.