The Mews Room

 I mentioned the other day on the Mark's Mews blog about the shower curtain storage hider.  I thought I would show the details.  I usually take pictures of projects.  But apparently, I didn't on this one.  So I'll try to explain what I did in case anyone wants to do something similar in an "extra room" (I live alone but in a 3 bedroom house).

Some pre-explanation...

The Mews Room used to be a guest bedroom.  I set it up with 2 single beds for my parents bi-annual visit.  I was a convenient place to stay on their trip from New England to Florida and back each year.  Had I lived far off their path, they probably wouldn't have visited.  We are a "practical" family.  LOL!

And when Dad became demented he stayed here for 2 years.  I removed one of the beds so he would have more space.  He had to go to assisted care in 2012, so I returned it to The Mews Room.

But I had also had the house insulation improved (for free by a special initiative by my electrical co-op).  I had to take everything stored in the attic out (including the plywood flooring strip down the middle) for the 2' in additional insulation.  But it meant I had boxes of stuff I had to put "somewhere".  They went into The Mews Room.  But it was pretty ugly.

So I thought about dedicating 2' of one side of the room to just "storage" and thought about how to hide it.  So I happened to notice my bathtub shower curtains.  The inner one is functional (keeps shower water in the tub).  But the outer one was just decorative.  So I looked up shower curtains.

I found some that were actually 8' tall and 6' wide!  

Bad picture, but it shows the pipe.  The shower curtains actually look like this...

But I had to figure out how to hang 2 of them across a 10' room.  Bathroom shower curtain rods are not that wide.  But metal pipes are.  The problem was the room was actually 10' 3".  So I thought about how to support a pipe 3" too short.

Aha!  metal angle brackets.

Two 3" angle brackets would fit inside the 3/4" pipe.  I measured the curtains (including the height of curtain rings). Added an inch for floor clearance and pipe thickness.  Attached one bracket at that height and screwed it into the wall using plastic anchors designed for drywall.  Slid one end of the pipe onto that.  Then I taped a level to the pipe and moved it up and down a bit of painters tape on the opposite side until I knew where the bottom of the other bracket should be.  Drilled holes for anchors of that 2nd bracket.

Put the 2nd bracket into the pipe (couldn't do it after installing the bracket).  And screwed in the 2nd bracket (already inserted into the pipe) using a board at an angle to keep it in place.  Checked the pipe for "level".  It was perfect!  

Clipped on shower curtain rings and hung the 2 shower curtains.  With 2 shower curtains, I can spread them either way from the center to get at the storage stuff.

I want to say that this sounds more complicated than it is.  It is really just...

1.  Attach a small pipe from wall-to-wall.

2.  Put on shower curtain rings.

3.  Hang shower curtains

4.  Hide stuff behind the shower curtains.

Projects

Well, I got the toolshed shelves finished.  Sometimes you have to stop seeking perfection and "just do it"!

I got the shelves to match up in the corners.  The bottom left shelf ended up 1/4" out of level.  But its a 25+ year old shed, nothing about it is level or square anymore, and it needs a new roof.  So I'm not going to worry about it.

I had to put 2x4 boards behind the shelves to keep small items falling out the back (the sheves are on exposed 4" studs).  I would have used 1x4 boards, but I bought 10" wide boards instead of 12" wide boards and the brackets would have stuck out otherwise and not allowed me to use the front screw hole in the tip of the bracket.  A 10" bracket IS 10" long; a 10" board is only 9 1/2".

Just moving some pots to the new shelves gained me 16 sq ft of basement space, and I have lots of garden stuff still to move.  I expect to recover about 50 sq ft when I transfer more "stuff" from the basement to the shelves.  And there will be more shed floorspace  to store power equipment I seldom use (but use a lot when I need it) when I take small amounts of some stuff out of large boxes and add them to the shelves. 

That will make more sense when I fill the shelves and get some of the equipment stored in there.  I'll take pictures.

In 30 years, I've accumulated a lot of equipment.  Snow-blower, tiller, chipper/shredder, lawn-roller, aerator...

Those things are cluttering up the garage and the REAL shed.  Yes, I have 2 sheds.  More importantly though, it frees up room in the basement for woodworking, and I am determined to make the basement easier to do work in. 

And with Winter coming on, I have some wood-working projects in mind to occupy my time