Thread: Wardrobe to Workbench/Workspace - Two Planks for the Price of Five

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I'd share a story with an almost tangential wood working project with you.

My little better half/supreme matriarch of the household (may her arrows ever hit her target.... so long as the target isn't me) decided that she'd had enough of my rag storage tendencies. Apparently I had too many.... in my wardrobe. I called them clothes, but she vehemently disagreed with a side of long-suffering looks and some expressive hand waving.... through a hole in my well-worn jumper for what I called "melodramatic" effect. <cue cheeky smirk here>

Ok, so I have "around the house" clothes for when I'm wood working, painting, renovating, and gardening. It literally doesn't matter to me if they're a little moth eaten, or got artistic streaks of red spray paint, have water proofing membrane in fluorescent greens or blues in "racing stripes" up my arm from when I redid the upstairs en suite. I live in Canberra, and as such, I wear multiple layers to stay warm for most of the year... and frankly, what are the odds of holes lining up with the underlying layers, really!?

After sullenly finding and removing all the clothes that were likely hole-ier than thine's, dear reader. (I feel I should throw in a forsooth & verily for effect), I found that I didn't actually need all that hanging space in the wardrobe. This started a chain of thoughts that merely throwing a few clothes out would not usually warrant.

So, my brain started considering what to do with that space. I knew that if that space remained unused for long... I wouldn't be the one using it... and shoes of a feminine nature may start settling the area like the pioneers of old.... or weeds of.... any time you care to name in my garden.. including today.

Can't have that now... She already has complete totalitarian/despotic domination of the entire walk in wardrobe, the spare room's wardrobe, and several tool boxes in the garage. She just made a ballroom gown with over 12m of fabric in the dress alone.... I'm not going to store that in my wardrobe... if for no other reason than to avoid potentially-awkward questions about my preferences in attire some time in the future.

So I had an unoriginal thought... (if it were my better half's idea, she'd have called it "externally inspired"). It was a half-baked idea of turning that unused hanging space into a workspace/storage combination for my computer-fixing/electronic dabbling/photography and video making tendencies. So fearing "opportunism-based-invasion", I "got to work"... before this space was "repurposed".

Nothing to see here.... move along:

I surreptitiously closed my wardrobe, and threw a few t-shirts (which didn't really need hanging) in there to make it look used, and closed the door.

Two planks for the price of five:

The plan was about as simple as it gets.

1. Remove the hanging rod from the space. (It just slides out, so no challenge there)
2. Find two thick benchtop-like planks of wood and run them across the lower half of the former hanging space. The top one is a work bench, the lower allows for additional storage.
3. Install wall mounted drawers for electronic bits and pieces.
4. Add lighting and power.

I wanted this to look and feel like a proper space to do some tinkering. So I looked for some nice thick bench top material. Wood's getting expensive these days, so when I saw the prices of large sheets of bench top at the local Bunnings... and the fact that some were only 25mm thick (I wanted chunkier than that) I nearly choked.

I was dejectedly looking at "cheap wood" (oh how rubbish that looked to me) when someone else's overloaded trolley banged into my own. So taking the hint, I turned away and went seeking some drawer storage for little electronic components. Surprisingly, as I was shambling along I went past the "clearance" items so often stored (unhelpfully) in the Bunnings walkway... and to spite my previous unhelpful comment, and/or by sheer dumb luck, I found some cheap-ish 1200mm x 300mm x 33mm "shelving panels". Ok, 300mm isn't wide enough to make a bench, but I could always pull out my trusty biscuit joiner ($30 on Gumtree) and join two for each shelf. Doing those ever-so-rough mental calculations, I bought a fifth to ensure I had enough and augment/resolve any unforseen "issues".

As usual, buying smaller panels is more expensive than buying bulk... most of the time.. but this time, I managed to shave about $100 off the larger sheet price. Honestly, it was a little.... high priced, even then... but that's a sign of the times, I guess. Interestingly, the larger sheets were 550mm wide, so I'd be left with a less useful 48mm strip (accounting for kerf) than the 198mm with the cheaper boards. Surely I can do something with that!

Smaller planks = easier transportation:

Since I drive a little Lancer sedan with no fold-down seating, the narrower planks actually made it easier to bring the wood home without "borrowing" my better half's hatchback. So I guess I should be less cynical/critical about Bunnings in general... despite the obvious masochism demonstrated by me practically living there and finding much frustration when they clutter up their aisles with "surplus" and "esoteric" stuff.

Off-cuts put to use:

It turns out that I used the off-cuts from that to make some of the shelf supports. So I suppose I should say something along the lines of: "Yay for extra material". To keep things looking vaguely consistent, I used some scrap melamine coated chip board to form the bench supports and screwed them to the middle shelves of my wardrobe. So I've managed to keep one plank completely unused so far, and one useful sized off-cut free. I'm thinking about making them into additional shelving.. but we'll see what happens. Nice to have though.

Once the wood is all cut up...

Some glue, some clamps, some sanding and varnishing followed. While waiting for glue to dry, I went out and bought some "Skydrag" light strips from Ikea (along with a "Styrbar" light switch, "Trådfri" 30W power supply, and "Förnimma" power cord.. yes they really did name the power cord as well). I installed them as coats of varnish were drying... then the shelves and drawers were installed via the usual drilling, screwing, and mounting.

So here we are:

WardrobeBench0.jpg

Please note: My grey (garage storage styled work bench covered in an ESD mat to the right of the image), and the chest of drawers below were previously there, and aren't part of this project. However, the project extends my workspace into an L-shaped table separated by a gap that allows me to close the wardrobe door. So it works within the wardrobe, and combines nicely with my improvised work bench.

I really liked the fact that the wall mounted drawers were only marginally smaller than the width of the wardrobe. That will help a lot, and use previously underused wall space. For lighting, I opted to get two 60cm "Skydrag" lights which fill the gap nicely.

The shelving below the bench was installed at a height that both housed the networking/audio/IT storage boxes on the lowest section, and the camera bags on the upper shelf. You can see it populated here:

WardrobeBench1.jpg

Ok, I need the bench is cluttered because I needed to take my tools back to the shed, but I think it's looking pretty good, and has made the area a lot tidier.


In conclusion...

Are you wondering what the better half thought when she saw it? She said that it looks good and likes the fact that my electronic gear is out of our office. She also likes that my room looks generally more organised.. and is wondering if she can do the same with one of her wardrobes....

When I mentioned that she'd have to donate some clothes to the local charities before that happened.. she actually got rid of about 4 cubic metres of clothing... so whether you consider her actions "externally inspired" is up to you. Hehehe.

All's well in our little realm of creative chaos. Mission accomplished... although I'm sure further tweaks will be made as they become needed.I hope this "inspires" others out there to find uses for their under-utilized wardrobe space.

Have fun, stay safe, make stuff, and of course, post pics!

Hamish.