August 2023 Part 1: Lockers

From the time we first walked through our new house, I knew we would need to do something differently about the mudroom. Our Fox Hollow house had a great mudroom, and the four coat hooks above a small bench wouldn't do the trick for us anymore. There were so many other projects that needed to happen first, like removing the doorway "entry" walls to create more space and replacing the flooring. We finally got that all finished, and it was finally time to work on the mudroom. After thinking it over across years, I drew up my vision, and Brian got to work making it happen. I love his worksheets: 

Here's my drawing: 

You already got a peak at some of our work on the lockers in July. In August, we were sill working on putting the boxes together, and Brian got the shelves cut and the edge banding applied, and I got to work putting a finish on them. I opted for a darker wood stain inside to better hide dirt from our shoes. 

Putting each locker box together took a little bit of time because we only had so many clamps to work with. This just gave our shelves plenty of time to cure. 

All in all, Brian made 6 boxes, 3 long ones for the bottom and 3 more to go on top so the storage would go to the ceiling after the trim gets installed. There was one set of narrow boxes the size of one locker (This on is for Gabe). 

Then, we had two sets of wider boxes. The taller bottom boxes had a divider down the middle to essentially make it two lockers inside. The shorter upper boxes didn't have the divider down the middle. These divided longer boxes were the trickiest to put together, so we were really glad that David helped us get one of them together. 

Once the boxes were put together, Brian put the edge banding on, with a help from Michael or I. Brian had lots of practice doing edge banding after doing our office desk tops. The banding looked so good! 

Then, it was time to paint the edge banding and touch up the insides. 

Finally, it was time to install them inside! We were both pretty excited, though Brian was quick to see all their flaws. 

Brian got to work making the toe-kick/stand. 

And cut out the flooring where the stand would go. 

After the flooring was out, he started installing the toe-kick. 

And then the lockers. 

The whole idea behind these lockers was that we could change them as our needs changed. I installed hooks in everyone's lockers based on how each person planned to use them (and what they could reach). The shelves would be removable and adjustable. We soon realized that we had been a tad conservative on the number of shelves we would each want, so we had to make some more. 

After the lockers were installed, Brian began working on the doors. He got pretty frustrated and let me know how much he really didn't like making doors. He sees all his mistakes, and I see beautiful doors. 

 By the end of August, he had them mostly put together, and we just needed to paint them and find the right hinges.