THE MICHAEL PROJECT
by Patrick Engle
The Michael Project
We bought Michael a futon for Christmas. Nice gift and it would get him out of his twin bed that he's been in since birth (well, almost). Some years ago I build a pair of bookcases and we mounted the twin bed on TOP of the bookcases. It provided plenty of storage for a couple of sets of encyclopedias as well as plenty of other things that teenagers collect. Since the twin bed was going so must the bookcases which meant he would need more space to put his "stuff". He only had the two puny shelves you see below.
What We Started With
We started by removing the paneling from the wall on Jan 1st. We discovered that this area was an old closet for this room but the previous owners built stairs through it to go to the basement. On the other side of the far wall is our living room. Michael's door is on the right.
After a Few Days
We removed all the old shelving and cut the 2 x 4s out of the way. I needed to add a piece of sheetrock to the left wall and then it was ready for painting. I added insulation to the ceiling of the stairs and to the wall as you can see. We don't heat the basement directly so we used the insulation as a heat and sound barrier.
10 Days Later
I went down to Eagle Hardware and looked at what I could use as shelving material. I found some really smooth 4 x 8 sheets of MDF (medium density fiberboard). It really was just what I was looking for; inexpensive, smooth, easy to cut, and strong. When I brought it home and started to install the shelves Brian asked why I was "wasting" good speaker box material on a shelving unit. I didn't know it at the time that I bought it, but this is what Brian's speaker box is made out of. The bottom shelf was made wide enough for about 10-12 shirts to hang on the hanger we would be installing above.
The next two shelves are screwed down on the back wall and on the right side. The boards appear to be sturdy enough to support a fair amount of weight. My carpenter brother-in-law has suggested putting a triangular shaped piece of board about 2" back from the front edge to add stability. The upper shelf height was determined by stacking two tupperware containers on top of each other and measuring them. The tupperware containers are long enough to allow you to reach them without climbing inside the top shelf area.
Sixth Week
As usual, we decided to use oak in the project. The area with the open door was originally going to have two sliding bypass doors but we decided that access on the right door would be minimal so we used one large door instead. The oak you see is 1/4" oak plywood that has been stained and varathaned. The trim is 2 1/4" oak colonial casing. Thanks to Vernon's chop saw the mitered corners turned out great. The upper bypass doors only have one handle so that we can slide both doors all the way to the right for wider access.
All Finished
The left side shelf unit was built as a separate unit out of 3/4" oak plywood and slid into place. Eventually Michael will move out and then Karen will put her stuff on the shelves. With that in mind, we made the unit so that we could put glass bypass doors on them. Every other shelf is recessed to allow this. When completely finished there will be three sets of sliding glass doors.
Karen wanted the bottom shelf to be removable so she could utilize the space BELOW the shelf unit but I said we had captured enough extra space for the time being. Sticking out of the wall inbetween the units is a TV coax cable and a phone line.
Finishing Touches
Even though I had kept a rug pad down for most of the project there were still some gouges in the hardwood floor and lots of paint speckles. So we puttied those and used a light steel wool to remove the paint and scrape marks from the floor. I reinstalled the original baseboards, installed a cleaned up drape rod and drapes, and put down some type of floor wax. We bought a 6 x 9 blue patterned rug, put together the futon, and added his drawing table where his computer now sits.