Junk Story: Shoe racks

I still have more shoes than my hubby... sigh...

This is going to be a series of junk making it into my home as a new repurposed function/furniture that is anesthetic enough to not look too shabby.

These shoe racks here is actually made out of 2 separate pieces I picked-up at the refuse room. The first rack (bottom half) doesn't even have any flaws on, it's lacquered, clean, have all the legs/supports but just sitting out in the refuse room.

The 2nd piece was however less of a good find. A 3-tier shoe rack, missing one of its support part, a little bit dirty and no varnish on.

But with a little modification, I have modified it into a 2-tier rack that serves its function, adding on top of my previous double-story shoe rack to make it 4. 2+2=4

Refurbish Cat Ledge Project

New cat ledge

It's been awhile since I posted (since October 2008?!) and I think I will start pick things up again. I'll try to keep my post short and sweet.

Short history, I've built a cat ledge with a board I found in the refuse room, but it had failed and grew unpleasant mold (ick!) that we junked it.

But the cats really enjoyed the ledge, so I decided to spend some money to build a reasonable priced one. It's technically a shelf by the window, that you use cats as the main decoration ;-)

Materials:

FABIAN shelf

IKEA FABIAN shelves: RM 15.90

HALL bracket

IKEA HALL bracketts: 2 x RM 9.90 = RM 19.80

Screws and dowells for the walls and board. Be sure you have a suitable "anchor" if you're installing unto drywall/stud.

1 Liter can of Dulux black Satinwood: Free, my brother is letting me use some after his other DIY project here

(I'm real proud he's managed to refurbish an old office table we gave him. Though it's compacted particle board, it's still usable. I like the glossy finish he did.)

Painting materials and tools

2 Liter King Cobra thinner: RM 20 (leftover from my many oil-based paint projects
a random plastic container: free
an unused mug: free

Tools:
Paint Brush: RM 1 (bought from 100% discount store in Kuching)
Electrical power drill and drill bit
Hammer
Screwdriver
Ruler, pencil

First coating

Firstly, I painted 3 coats of paint on the FABIAN untreated soft pine plank. Pretty straight forward painting, while waiting around 1-half hour for each coating to dry. Confirmed that it's NOT worth it to save a few bucks to skimp on paint brands. First attempt to repaint my dining table with a cheapo white glossy paint didn't work out so well. For months, I still get some paint sticking to my things. I have repainted my table with Nippon Odourless (white) matt paint, and no problems since. It's oil based but dries a lot quicker than glossy paint, even on some of the heavy drip part.

Anyway, because the brackets that comes with the FABIAN shelves are not tough enough to take the impact of the cats jumping from the high shelves in the laundry room, I thought the HALL brackets (made out of cast iron bars) should be sufficient.

The cats didn't like it for the first few months actually because it's painted. Now they don't mind it so much.