A few days ago I took out the shelves that I had been using in the kitchen of THO. I built them last summer out of left over lumber from the house construction but did not find them deep enough to be good practical storage for dishes and so forth. When I took them down I thought that they would make a really great utility cupboard for tiny building supplies such as nails and screws, extra hinges and thingamajiggers. I decided to put it up on the South facing wall inside of the cloth porch. Truthfully, I had this stuff in one of those big exterior use plastic storage bins with all the stuff like the big tarps, string, rope, chain, oil and so on, and this was a nuisance because the containers were constantly popping open and dumping. Can you just about hear me cursing?
Only problem with the idea of repurposing this, is that I wanted to put it up high and and I was both too short and not quite strong enough to get them up there on my one and screw the things in. So, it turned out good that my husband decided to come down to help me with this task on the weekend. I held it up and he drilled it to the wall. Bammo-presto, in a few seconds the job was well on it’s way!
After this, he put on some 1×3 to trim it up while I attached hinges to some left over 12 inch wide boards from the kitchen construction, for doors. Oddly, I also had two hook and eye catches in the odds and ends that would eventually go in here, so I put one inside to hold door one closed and then I put the other one on to hook the two together. I also coated them with lemon oil although I am not sure that this is strong enough for exterior use, but if they start to look ratty I will simply finish them later.
In future, I will have to stand on a step ladder to reach any of the small thingies in the newly reused cupboard – but even so, I think that this is markedly more practical, than having to root around and find them in the abyss outside!
The bonus is that the abyss itself, does not seem all that awful now either! Funny how simple stuff makes life so much easier sometimes!
Tiny House Ontario 