Work room clean up (off topic WIP)

Ladies and gentlemen,

after the latest release I wanted to clean up a bit and this turned into a full blown clean up frenzy, so here comes a little off topic WIP report on my progress on this front :)

It all started with my two scratch built boxes for filing sketch ideas. I have built them out of corrugated cardboard with railings so I can hang these red filing folders in there. They worked well in theory except that they were always put someplace I had a hard time accessing the folders! After looking for filing cabinets I discarded this path because all I found where ugly and quite expensive.

So I decided to extend my very functional, cheap and massive wood IKEA IVAR shelf system and incorporate the file storage there. For now it goes around my computer desk location in a U shape. I wanted to extend it where it connects to my work/build table. In the above pic you can see the added narrow shelf until and the folders placed there. But how to organize them?

My girl friend invited me to extend even further across the work table so I set up a narrow shelf tower over there too and connected them with some planks across the table for even more space :) Now about the folders ... my idea was to store my sketches horizontally so I have easy access and can look for sketches or add them without problems.

My solution appeared when I realized that I can utilize the pre-drilled holes for placing the wooden IKEA shelf boards and the space in between was apx A3 dimensions. I got some dowels and 2mm A3 cardboard sheets. After inserting the dowels and cutting out the corner post shapes from the A3 sheet I was able to place the cardboard on the dowels. The only downside was that the cardboard did sag a little (mainly due to it's own weight but also when the sketches were many and heavy).

I got some thin wood strips from the hardware store, cut them to size and glued them to the bottom of the cardboard. I am filling two sections with these horizontal spacers so I glued a bunch of them and dry pressed them like my other papercraft. Thank God for Calvin&Hobbes and TheFarside Collections :)

After it had dried I reinserted them into the shelf framework and now it looked perfect!

Here you can see the whole extended section. The red area on the left is the end of the original IVAR. The green is the newly added extension. The red arrow pointing down is the area I cannot show yet ... my work table now holding all the not-yet-cleaned up mess :)

I have declared on shelf the fan toy section, so you can see some Star Wars, Star Trek and WoW stuff :)

In this process I also cleaned up my computer desk, so this is a fresh view. I am hoping I can keep it clean like this for a long time. It usually was cluttered with sketches and designs which never made it into my filing system. So now you see why I had to do all of this!

This closes my little excursion and I am going right back into proper work mode but i thought I share this very easy and affordable way to add some functionality to the IKEA IVAR system :)

So as usual, until next time, stay safe and keep building!

Chris