The Gift of Organization

My good friend Cindy, with whom I worked at my last job in Arizona, sent a wonderful late Christmas gift in the form of a very generous Amazon gift certificate.  She had apparently intended to send me a high-tech back-up electric blanket, but it was on back-order so eventually opted for the gift certificate.  What fun.  Books and CDs are usually my limit, but with this gift I could do some serious on-line shopping. 

I have been particularly dissatisfied with this area by the stove.  There are two mismatched upper shelves and I didn't want to paint the one because my sister bought it and I think she still likes Pennsylvania Dutch.  Then there's the shelf at counter level, that's tilting dangerously, on which I've put my microwave.  You can see I had to put little wooden feet under the front to get it level.  What with the canister for my wet garbage (no running water, no garbage disposal) and my grease can for drippings, this leaves very little work space.  Then underneath, well, I actually cleaned this out a little for the photo.  In addition to the wood box and the trash container (which still has one of my paint cans in it), there's usually a basket of kindling here.  I'd found an industrial looking metal basket at an antique store summer before last for that purpose, but it doesn't contain the debris well.  Then I tried substituting Lola's old car basket, but it started coming apart.  Finally, at some point earlier in the winter when the weather was really bad and I needed kindling, I just brought in an entire plastic tub I'd filled with kindling I'd picked up on my walks with Lola last summer, so this was quickly turning into a disaster area. 

Since I also have no place for pots and pans I started out looking at pot racks and kitchen utility carts and then, after taking some measurements, expanded my range to bakers racks (and if that's possessive, let alone singular or plural, I can't find it either in my dictionary or on line).  I measured and then measured again.  The ceilings are really low in this cabin.  Maybe Dad built it low to the ground to save on building materials or, if he was thinking ahead, to keep the cabin hunkered down to withstand the winds. So, I had to find a bakers rack that wouldn't be too tall and one that wouldn't interfere with the stove.  After I ordered, I realized that one thing I hadn't taken into account was access to the ash box.  A wood stove produces ash, which falls through a grate in the fire box into the ash box.  I guess that's what the ash container is called.  If I ever knew, I've forgotten.  Anyway, one chore the owner of a wood stove must address fairly regularly is taking out the ashes.  And you do it when there's no wind so ashes don't blow back into your face and the cabin when you open the door!   So, I've worried that perhaps I won't be able to pull out the ash box and I'm still not sure even though I took more measurements today.  I'm one of these people that just has to try things and see how they work. 

The bakers rack arrived via UPS about 3:30 p.m. today.  The driver just knocked and ran. Guess I can't blame him as bad as the winds have been today, but the box was very heavy, so I had to drag it into the cabin.

I wasn't going to assemble the rack today, but decided I couldn't wait, so while the wind battered the cabin without surcease, I cut open three sides of the carton to access the parts and instructions. 

The instructions were pretty easy to follow.  The unit has a wine rack and that went in first as you can see below.  An Allen wrench was provided along with the bolts.  You can see just a small amount of the large amount of packing materials I now have to cut up and burn or take to the dump.
 

Then the two shelves went in as shown below.  The instructions should have made it clear not to tighten the bolts in the first shelf completely so that one could squeeze in the second shelf without scratching the uprights.  I had to loosen the screws and then re-tighten them.

A reinforcing tube had to be installed between the two sides at the rear and the arched back was attached to that in three places.  Then the fan-shaped side pieces were attached to the back and the base.

The wooden top (below) just slides in but is supposed to be screwed down.  I think I'm going to have to turn the rack on its side tomorrow to line up the screws holes and small pilot holes that have been made in the bottom of the wooden top.

There are a couple of little shelves that hang on the back and it came with six nice long black pot hooks.  Pretty cute, huh?  Thanks, Cindy!

So, tomorrow, I have to unload all of the old shelving and remove it.  Some of those screws and nails have been in there since the cabin was built, I think, so WD-40 to the rescue.  I hope I don't run into any difficulties because I'm really looking forward to getting this in place and getting it loaded up.  If it prevents me from pulling out the ash box, I'll have to start playing musical furniture.  But I already have some fall-back ideas.  Have you ever had to change your mind about the final location of a piece of furniture?  Teddee