How to Build a Laundry Basket Sorter {an Ana White DIY Project}
How to Build a Laundry Basket Sorter {which could also be known as…. home projects take 74 times the amount of time you think they should}.
I’ve oooohed and aaaaahed over Ana White’s website for a few years. She shares highly detailed building plans for any project you can think of – and they’re all completely free! CHA CHING! Before we got married, Michael built me a bed. The plan was modified from Ana White and y’all – it.is.gorgeous. {See the plan here: http://ana-white.com/2009/11/plan-love-farmhouse-bed-now-with-arch.html} This is the bed the day we put it together in our room. Ignore the messiness – we were consolidating households. And also, we actually live in our home. It will never, ever get mistaken for a show home… and I’m okay with that. Even with covers all askew, the bed is prettttty incredible. I love the stain color and I know that my husband {then my fiance} worked long, late nights to complete this bad boy.
I have never actually built anything from an Ana White plan, though. I haven’t built many things period, let alone whose plan they were from {even though my mom bought me that fantastic pink tool set…}. Don’t get me wrong – I have pinned many, many plans… I just hadn’t ever gotten brave enough to tackle one. In our current home, the laundry room is basically a closet off the kitchen. There isn’t laundry storage in the closet/laundry area, so when I fold the clothes out of the dryer I usually have baskets stacked randomly in the hall/kitchen. When we looked at the new house {and it’s humongo laundry area}, I knew I wanted to add a laundry basket sorter like I’d seen on Ana White. The plan for this laundry shelf is that you can make the whole thing from one sheet of plywood {cute AND cost-effective?! yes please!}.
Photo Source: ana-white.com |
The plan for the laundry basket sorter can be found here: http://ana-white.com/2012/03/plans/brook-laundry-basket-dresser-4-tall-and-lengthwise. The photo shows three units together. I modified mine to hold 3 baskets {so it’s counter height} and to have shelves instead of just wood sliders along the sides. It still only took one piece of plywood. The plan says it is “starter level” – I can now tell you that our definition of easy is apparently different. The laundry basket sorter wasn’t particularly hard to build, but it was more complex than I anticipated.
The basic steps:
Step 1. Buy one sheet of plywood; cut to size {The Lowe’s workers cut it down to roughly 1/4 sheet size so it would fit in my car. Hubby helped me trim down the pieces from there. It was now that I used a chalk line for possibly the first time. Also, I do not wearing suggest shorts and flip flops while you’re cutting lumber… just saying.}