Custom Trash/Recycling Bins

As part of the Kitchen Renovation we lost the space where we had our trash can: See that shinny thing over there...

Yeah, that. It didn't have a home in the new plan of the kitchen since we were putting in almost 8 linear feet of cabinets on a wall that was just over 8 feet didn't leave any room for a trash can. And in reality there wasn't really any other place to put one. We could have limited the amount of cabinets we were putting in, but I really didn't want to do that.

Then, the perfect solution presented it self when we found the cabinets... one of the base cabinets came without drawers and doors:

I remembered seeing a Trash/Recycling piece over at Knock-off-wood. I figured I could modify those plans to suit our needs.

So, without further rambling here is what I started with:

• Base cabinet
• 2 trash cans the fit (harder to find than I thought, but not impossible)
• Left over 1x10" pine from another project
• Left over 1/2" plywood
• 1/2" "L" molding. I don't know if that is what it is really called, that is what I'm calling it
• Piano hinges
• Wood glue
• Nails
• Clamps
• Jig saw or hand saw
• Compound miter saw or miter box
• Palm sander or sand paper
• Wood filler
• Primer
• Paint
• Cup hooks 
• Chain

To start, I needed to cut the cross piece off the base cabinet that would have separated the drawer from the door with a jig saw:

This allowed for the trash cans to be able to fit and tilt out:

To construct the tilting door, I took a piece of the plywood that I had cut to the width I wanted for the door and attached it to a piece of 1x10" for the base using wood glue and then nails. You'll see the door and base are different widths. This allowed the door to extend past the width of the opening while the base fit inside... it also allowed me to use reclaimed wood that we already had on hand, rather than spending money on new.

Additional support was needed for the structure so I miter cut a 3" wide section of the plywood:

The supports were attached to the outside of the base and the back of the door using by applying wood glue, securing with clamps and following up with nails.

The problem with using left over materials... they often look like left over materials. The plywood edges were raw and that is putting it mild.

That is where the "L" molding came in, I miter cut the "L" molding to fit around the edges of the doors. Those were secured with wood glue while things were clamped I nailed them in.

See the difference - the trimmed door on the right, the untrimmed door on the left.

This was as far as I could take the building of the unit until the base cabinet was installed. Which meant it was time for painting. Prior to painting the seams around the molding were filled with wood filler on the door and everything was sanded and sanded and sanded.

With the base cabinet installed in the kitchen, but BEFORE (very important) the counter top was on, I attached the piano hinge to the bottom of the door and then while very carefully standing IN the base cabinet the other half of the hinge was attached to the opening of the base cabinet.

And then the counter top went on.

Then it was time for the support hinge, something that Ana at knock off wood used. Well, I tried to find the exact same support hinge at a variety of stores here, and I couldn't. The guys at Ace suggested "Friction Lid Support" hinges:

We tried them. They didn't work - the return of the hinge kept the door from completely closing.

So I went back, returned the support hinges and went pretty basic, safety cup hooks and chain:

I cut the chain into a length that would allow the door to open, but keep it from falling all the way open. Cup hooks were attached to the inside of the base cabinet and the back of the door and the chain attached to each:

Still with me??? We're almost done!

Last: Hardware!

And now, we've got the perfect Trash/Recycling bins.

In some ways I wish I'd gone with new materials, but it feels good to have saved money and saved items from landfills. And we've gotten exactly what we needed and wanted.

The Full Before and After

Most of the accessories in place, granted some are for Valentine's Day which is now over... but I wanted to show the full before and after of the space.

Here is the (embarrassing) before.

 

And the wonderful after:

  

Pictured, but not featured here are some coloring book racks (similar to magazine racks except made by me and smaller to fit coloring books which aren't as tall.)

 

Here are links to the various projects that put this all together:

• The Bookcase
• The Toile Photo Boxes
• 3 Cream and Black Boxes
• Heart Art Trio
• Love Vase
• Staging of the Wall

THE bookcase

I think all I really need to do is post a before picture and you'll see why we needed a new solution for this space.

Yeah, that sooooo isnt' working.

We've been looking for a solution here for about 3 years, originally there was a smaller bookcase and what is pictured was an upgrade (borrowed from the guest bedroom.) After finding pieces priced from $200 - $450 and HIGHER, I had just about given up.

Then I found Ana's website. And more specifically, THIS bookcase.

I'm pretty fearless when it comes to home improvement/creative projects so it took me all of 2 seconds to decide to do it... thankfully my parents have a pick up truck and I convinced them to come see the grandchildren, little did they know we were also going to Lowes to buy the materials.

I'm not going to go through the materials list, or the step by step, Ana's got all that on her website... I will show a bit of our process and some of the things we learned. This post may be long, but believe me - once you get to the end and see the finished piece, you'll know it was worth it.

Ok, so we started out by mapping Ana's cut instructions and deciding that if we were going to do this, I wanted it exactly as I wanted it... so we increased the width by 4 inches.

And here is a bit of what we went through.

 

  

(We went with the furring strips instead of the finished 1x2's and 1x3's... this considerably increased our sanding, but we saved A LOT!)

 

We had to move the building into the kitchen when temperatures dipped WAY too low to keep working in the garage. My neat freak husband wasn't thrilled about this... so we moved to the foyer after that night)

 

Building done - let the priming/painting begin.

And this is when I noticed a problem... a big problem, the back looked awful, we went with the 1/4" plywood and should have gone with MDF or something, anything else.

So, it was back to Lowes where I picked up this paintable textured wall paper. Very happy with this solution and I've already got another project lined up to use the remaining wall paper.

So, are you ready to see the finished bookcase... Here it is:

 

 

In the next couple of days, I'll post more about what we've done with it... but I think I've rambled on long enough.

Oh - the budget. The final cost for the bookcase, MDF, Plywood, furring strips, nails, paint, wall paper... and likely a bunch of stuff I've forgotten, it cost: $90

SMILE!

So we've made Ana's clip art rails and my plan for them was to feature the kids artwork on them for the bottom clips.

For the top, my daughter and I worked on a little project. I asked her for a list of words that she thought of when she thought of the play room here is what we came up with:

We then agreed our favorite word from the list was "SMILE." So we turned to the cricut and cut the letters out along with a bunch of what we agreed looked like "bubbles." We had so much fun making the bubbles that we couldn't stop and ended up with extra's which now are on the bottom of the rail... for now. We'll likely swap these out as we feel like it.

For now, it certainly makes me Smile.

 

A couple of close ups:

Play Room Clip Art Rail

It was through Kari at UCreate that I found Ana at Knock Off Wood when she featured this project:

Creative Guest: Knock-Off Wood {Clip Art Rails Tutorial}

I picked up the 1x2 for less than $5 at Lowes, everything else I had on hand to fix up this bare wall in the kids playroom:

Ana's tutorial is much better, but in case you are interested, here is how I did it.

Materials:

• 1 length of 1x2" pine
• 2 handfuls of clothes pins
• Spray paint
• Gorilla Glue

Ok - so first I measured and cut the 1x2" to 80" which was about 4" shorter than the wall.

Then I painted it black to match the bookcase and frames in the room.

I took apart the clothes pins and spray painted them silver (the color of metals in the room, the lamp the storage stuff in my craft area.)

And then I had to put those little suckers back together which I've got to tell you is NOT easy.

I was going to decoupage the clips, like I did back in November but then decided I liked them plain.

Next up - affixing the clothes pins to the 1x2 - I decided to use Gorilla glue rather than screwing them into the rail, the stuff worked really well on the bunk bed book shelves and I've got plenty left over.

Once the Gorilla Glue had dried, we simply used dry screws to attach it directly into the studs.

(That is the back of my husband - I don't have quite the muscle to counter sink the dry wall screws into the studs... had to bring in the muscle.)

And here is the finished rail:

More tomorrow on what we've done with it... stay tuned.