It's Great To Be Home

Make A Storage Unit From Salvaged Materials. Step 3: Grab The Glue And Screws!

Now that we’ve got the cabinets and door sliced, diced and perfectly painted, it’s time to assemble everything into one snazzy, salvaged storage unit!!

Here’s all you’ll need to turn two upper cabinets and a hollow core door into a storage unit:

~ 4 L-brackets and corresponding screws

~ 4 drywall anchors (optional)

~ Gorilla Glue (or other wood glue)

~ drill

~ painter’s tape

~ 4 cabinet knobs of your choosing

~ screwdriver

1. Assume the position. Got that perfect spot picked out for your storage unit? Mine was a blank wall in my craft room that was just begging for some extra storage, and I lined the cabinets up against the wall.

Chances are that one of your cabinets will lean out further than the other one (like mine, above) – this is no problemo. Just wiggle them around until the fronts of the cabinets are flush and level, then put a few screws through the interior walls of the cabinets (using your trusty drill) so that the two sides of the cabinet are screwed together. This will keep them flush and perfect for all eternity.

2. Batten down the hatches. Now you’re ready to attach your cabinets to the wall. This is an important step, because you don’t want your storage unit to come crashing down the second that you put something in it – that would be pretty uncool. All you need is a few L-brackets and screws (and drywall anchors if you want, which will make your cabinet less likely to pull out from the wall). These are what I used (apparently L-brackets are also called corner braces – who knew?):

I put one L-bracket in the outer corners of each cabinet – just attach the L-bracket to the underside of the top of the cabinet with a few screws. I was driving myself crazy trying to hold the L-bracket in place with one hand and the screw with the other hand and then trying to screw in the screw – that’s for the birds. Here’s a little tip – just use some painter’s tape or masking tape and tape those little brackets to your cabinet and to the wall – voila! No more pulling your hair out while you’re trying to screw the screws in!

Here’s another little tip. If you’re going to have anything on top of your cabinet that has cords, make sure that you leave a little space behind your cabinets so that the cords can sneak through. I knew that I was going to have a TV on top of my cabinet, so I used a screwdriver to hold the cabinets out from the wall when I was placing the L-brackets. Easy!

3. Put a lid on it. Here’s the fun part, the part where your storage unit is actually going to start looking like a storage unit instead of just some random cabinets and a door. All you need to do is grab your Gorilla Glue, make some squiggles on the top of your cabinets and smush the door down on top. After you make sure everything is centered and just where you want it, grab some heavy stuff and put it on top for about an hour.

Note: If you’re going to have cords behind the unit, you might want to make a little cut-out on the back side of the door that you can sneak your cords through. To make the cut-out in my door, I just figured out where I wanted the cords to come through, made two little inch-long cuts with my hand saw, scored the wood with a utility knife, and then whacked away at it with a hammer until the pieces broke off. One piece was a little pesky, so I went after it with a pair of pliers and it finally submitted. Victory!

4. Get a handle on things. While the glue on your new countertop is drying, it’s the perfect time to put some new knobs on your storage unit. I wasn’t exactly sure where I wanted the new knobs, so I just took a look at the knobs on our kitchen cabinets and copied the placement. I figured out that the knobs should be 1 inch below the frame of the cabinet door, in the middle of the side piece.

Then I just measured down, made a little dot with a pen, and made a little hole with my trusty drill using a drill bit that was about the same size as the screws that came with the new knobs.

Final tip of the day – put a little painter’s tape on the back side of the cabinet door where you’re going to be drilling – that will prevent the wood from splintering and make your drill hole look more like Picture 1 than Picture 2.

Yay, now your storage unit is ALMOST ready to go!! Stay tuned to find out how to make that snazzy, custom countertop . . .

Christy’s Fireplace Dilemma

Fireplaces are at the very top of the list of things that people wish for when they’re searching for homes – fireplaces are all warm and cozy, and make a house feel like a home. So what’s a girl to do when she snags a house with a fireplace, but she hates the way it looks? That’s the position Christy was in when she sent me this email:

Hi Liz,

So here’s the snapshot of our fireplace. We hate the brass surround on the glass doors/screen. Do you think we could paint it black or silver and it would look decent? Alternatively, we could buy a smaller one that still does the job. We have to keep our daughter out of it, obviously! What say you? Muchas gracias for your thoughts! ~ Christy

I know Christy isn’t the only one with this dilemma – isn’t it crazy how popular those brass fire surrounds used to be? We had a similar surround on our fireplace before we demolished and rebuilt the whole thing because of some crazy, shiny stone.

Here’s the brass surround that Christy’s living with:

Luckily Christy won’t need to do anything drastic to get her fireplace into fantastic form – all it’s going to take is an afternoon with one of these guys:

Here’s the down and dirty on how to turn that dated, brass fireplace surround into a total showstopper:

1. Pick your poison. It’s pretty cool – these days they make a high heat spray paint that can be used to spray paint just about anything that gets hot, from grills to exhaust pipes to . . . you guessed it . . . fireplace surrounds. It’s specially formulated to withstand insane temperatures, and is safe to use to paint your fireplace surround. These paints are easy to pick up at places like Home Depot and Lowe’s, and come in a few colors and finishes, like black (flat and glossy), white, hunter green, silver and gold. In Christy’s case, I think a coat of flat black paint would make her fireplace look dynamite by picking up on the darker bricks in the fireplace as well as the bookcase and chair that sit nearby. [Edit: Stove Bright also makes high heat paints (including primer and cleaner/paint prepper) that come in a huge assortment of colors that can be ordered online, and Thurmalox makes a clear stove paint that can provide a glossy finish.]

2. Unscrew the fireplace surround from the fireplace. There should be screws holding the surround into the fireplace – just find them and unscrew the whole shebang (and be sure to hang onto your screws).

3. Head outside. This high heat spray paint is pretty toxic stuff, so be sure to do this project either outside or in an open garage. Once you’re outdoors, unscrew the brass trim from the doors. Lay the trim on newspaper or a tarp and spray the trim in thin, even passes. Tape off the glass part of the doors with newspaper and painters tape to protect the glass, and then go to town spray painting the doors. [Edit: To ensure extra adhesion, you may want to clean and sand the doors before you begin spray painting them.]

4. Let it dry. Although spray paint dries pretty quickly, try to give the trim and doors at least a day to dry before you put them back up just to be safe. Once the trim and doors are dry, find your screws and put those babies back in place!

5. Brag a little. Your friends will be totally jealous that your fireplace now looks so awesome. If you feel like being nice, you can tell them how easy this project was.

Totally doable, right?? And if you are debating between painting the surround and replacing it, like Christy, you don’t have anything to lose by giving painting a try before you spend a bunch of money replacing the surround – that simple $5 can of spray paint will probably do the trick!!

Have any of you tried this project? Got any projects that you’d like to tackle but need some advice? Fire away!! You can leave your question in the comments or shoot me an email here.

And by the way – see that fab mantle above Christy’s fireplace? And the beautiful hearth? Christy and her husband made the mantle from scratch, and Christy’s husband and dad tiled the hearth. Skills, I tell you!! How awesome is that??

Images courtesy of Rustoleum. This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.