In my office I am everything from receptionist to sales, A/P and A/R, Payroll too. HR rep, nurse, cleaning lady, customer service, quality control, yep I have several hats and with those hats come several folders that in return become several piles. I am amazed at myself for my ability to put my hands on the right folder at the right time. I know where everything is and only occasionally get confused with the details…so what is the problem…IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I just want to cringe when I walk in each morning and I see all of these piles. Granted some has pending work, some has “have to do now” work, some is work in progress, and yes some even are every day tasks. The problem is that my mind sees clutter, my mind images of work of piles of overwhelming capacity….granted that is exactly what it can be sometimes…but I don’t want to see it.
One morning I was flipping through the Viking office source catalog (which saves me money all of the time) trying to find the perfect organizer to meet my needs. It had to fit on my desk, against the wall, not to tall so that I would have to move my favorite picture and have enough small cubby holes for my individual projects/folders. I found one that was close, not exactly what I wanted but it would do. It was on Sale! $249.99. Oh for Pete’s sake that is highway robbery. My boyfriend, who also works with me, just shook is head and sighed. What? I said. I know that look he said. Again, What? You are planning another do it yourselfer, aren’t you? Well, maybe. You see most of my do it yourselfer involves him. Not that I couldn’t do it alone. It is just that he has such a natural carpentry/engineer’s insight. I value his input. (plus it’s funner) 10 minutes later, after measuring my desk and it’s perimeters and explaining the modifications I wanted from the picture we are off to Menards, my favorite store in the world. After looking at the pre cut sanded plywood, I found a 4x8 sheet of the perfect material. Not too thick not too thin and ON SALE. (with plenty leftover for more projects like book ends, and catalog shelves) We already had luan board at home to do the folder shelves with so after getting a few other items we went home to start cutting out patterns. I highly recommend cutting patterns from cardboard when designing yourself. It has proven to save a lot of time and material loss. You can place your patterns on the wood and have very little waste. After checking and rechecking we marked the wood and started cutting. The long cuts were done by using a circular saw. The curving and closer cutouts were done with a jig saw. I routered the edges to give it that finished professional look. (I love routering)
Next we assembled (no glue or nails just checking the fit), marked where the luan board shelves would go then routered a 1/8” line for the luan to slide into. (my thoughts here were that if I ever needed to make more space I could simply remove a shelf by sliding it out, Plus I like to router) After everything fit nicely and the finishing touches were made, we were going to assemble and I realized that I wanted to finish it. So I said Wait, it would be easier to finish it in pieces and then put it together. He shook his head and this is where I was on my own. (Men are so funny, we woman get light bulbs all the time that cause us to change our minds and direction) So I spent the next hour staining and polyurethane. Hopefully one more coat and we can put it together tomorrow night. Total cost $34.00 and about 4 hours. And it fits perfectly to my desk. It can’t get any better than that, unless someone would do my laundry that didn’t get done while we were on this project. LOL Next up, Book shelves and Catalog rack with the rest of the wood. Total cost, only time.
