Tim and I had set a date a few months back. We specifically picked April 4th because I would be on Spring Break and Tim is off on Thursdays and Fridays. I have had this date circled on my calendar since February and couldn’t wait to spend the day together. We had the most incredible day ever and I even get a bit teary-eyed thinking back on the events of the day. I know you are on the edge of your seats wondering what we did? Well, let me just tell you that this is something that has been a deep desire in my heart for several years now and yesterday, it finally happened. Now before I get carried away with our date, I have to tell you about the super easy and quick DIY project that I did in the morning before our date. I will fill you in on our fabulous date tomorrow….it is a long story and I was up way too late and can only commit to a quick post as I am bagged, but believe me this is a good one.

Here is a BEFORE shot. It doesn’t actually look as bad as it was.

Nail boards onto the bottom of the shelf (or top of the cupboard depending on your space).

Use your divider as a spacer between the wood pieces.

AFTER: The shelf has been placed inside and the dividers just slide into the channels.

Here is my new space. I was even able to add my loaf pans on the new shelf!

DIY Cookie Sheet Storage

You may recall me mentioning the sad state of my cookie sheet/muffin tin cupboard a few posts ago. I am not exaggerating when I say that a battle took place each and every time that cupboard door opened. Not one single item came in or out without a fight and I finally had enough. I knew what I wanted, but had put it off because I had never really taken the time to figure out how to get the job done and I honestly thought it was beyond my capabilities, but I was so wrong. This is one of the easiest projects I’ve done. First of all, I googled and within the first few links found a tutorial explaining exactly what I wanted to do. I was so excited! Here’s what I did.

1. Measured the depth and width of my cupboard (7 1/2″ X 24″ deep).
2. I knew that I would need two dividing boards and planned to use scrap pegboard that I already had in the house. The thickness of pegboard is about 1/4″.
3. The concept is so easy. You mount boards along the base and top of the cupboard that are the same distance apart as your divider board which in my case was 1/4″. The space between the mounted boards creates the channel for the vertical dividers to stand in. I didn’t really have boards on hand that would work for this, so I went to Home Depot and picked-up 3 four foot poplar boards that were each 1/4″ thick for around $10. (This is actually a bit of a fib. It wasn’t until I went to stain that I realized I had grabbed a 3 foot piece of the 1 1/2″ board. It wasn’t worth going back, but I had planned to mount it on the top under the shelf so it wouldn’t be seen, but completely forgot and used the longer piece on top. Oh well, it is not like anyone will ever see the back of that cupboard again!) I was aiming to have the boards equal 7 1/2″ minus the 1/2″ to account for the channel between the boards (1/4″ X 2 channels), so I could purchase boards equalling up to 7″ wide. I ended up purchasing two boards that were 2 1/2″ wide and one that was 1 1/2″ wide for a total width of 6 1/2″. I couldn’t get the numbers to workout exactly, but just planned to leave the extra space on the outside edges close to the walls of the cupboard. It worked perfectly.
4. I then stained the boards and cut them to 21″ long as I wanted the dividers to sit back a few inches from the front of the cupboard. So I ended up with 2 fat boards and one narrow board for both the base and top of the space. (I needed 6 boards in all).
5. I didn’t want to waste any space, so I put those little metal shelf plugs in the pre-drilled holes on the sides of the cupboard. This allowed me to add a shelf and extra storage space above my trays. I had the plugs on hand and for the shelf, I just used a scrap piece from an old desk top that I had dismantled and re-purposed a while back. It is not in perfect shape, but it will be completely hidden and has a melamine surface, so it will stand up well. It just needed about 1/4″ trimmed off the side to fit perfectly in the space. I placed the pegs in with the shelf on top and measured a distance of 16 3/8″ between the base and the bottom of the shelf.
6. I then cut the pegboard at 21″ X 16 3/8″ so that it would fit snuggly between the top shelf and base inside the channels I was making.
7. This part certainly wasn’t hard, but I must admit I took a bit of time to think this through to avoid making a mistake. After cutting the pegboard I realized that I may have to accommodate the shelf pegs by notching out the wood because I couldn’t have the shelf rest on my wood pieces or it would raise the height and my pegboard would no longer fit snuggly. I ended up placing my shelf on the pegs and marking the underside of my board, so I knew how far the pegs sat out under the shelf. I removed the shelf and mounted my first length of board so that it would sit tight against the pegs. I then used my pegboard as a spacer and mounted the next board. When I went to mount the third board, I realized that there wouldn’t be quite enough room for the pegs, so I ended up cutting about 1/4″ off of the side of one of the top boards. (Of course, this was not necessary on the base.) I placed the shelf back in, and it rested perfectly on the bottom of the shelf, not the channel boards. (Lucky for me that I only bought boards equaling 6 1/2″ otherwise I would have had to do more trimming to account for the pegs.)
8. I then used the same system to nail the boards to the base of the cabinet ensuring that the placement matched the boards at the top.
9. Finally, I slid in my pegboard dividers and have myself an awesome storage system for my pans. Yay!

* You might have noticed that I also mounted the base for a “Command” hook here. (You know the sticky kind.) I am going to hang my oven mitts here.