Paturzo Projects

After living with my parents for so painfully long, I became rather accustomed to having my own basement shop.  And really, it was quite swanky.  Two workbenches, my drill press, and piles of reclaimed crap.

When I bought my house, I realized I was moving somewhere that had a basement that was only accessible  from outside.  Bleh, that was going to blow come the winter time.  So I figured I’d get some kind of small workbench for my office, mainly for electronics work and synth repair.

To make a long story short, nobody made anything remotely close to what I wanted.  And really, what the hell is the market for “pretty, rolling and low shelves”?  Can’t be a large market at all.  So after some deliberation I started poking around the Ikea catalog and ran across some cheap counter tops.

So the first iteration was a simple table on wheels.  Just a big ole inch thick counter top on some Ikea legs with wheels.  Boring.  So boring in fact my dumb ass forgot to take a picture.  But as a bonus, here’s the “taking break, time for a picture” picture.

Remember kids, there's always time for lube. Screw lube that is.

Dawn is my default lubricant for screws.  And it helped  a lot in this case.  The Ikea counter tops are beech, which is gummy as hell.

After a while I realized that a bottom shelf would be great.  But I didn’t want to ditch my neato looking metal legs for casters and spacers.  So a little thinking and dropping a Jackson at MSC, I had a solution.

My plan was to use the old counter top as a shelf.  So I started by cutting the corners off of the existing table.  This left me with a nice bottom shelf that had clearance to clear the legs.  The added benefit was that the overall height of the table got a boost.

When it came to mounting the bottom shelf I wanted something adjustable, sturdy and good looking.  Threaded rod and countersunk holes was an easy choice here.  I love building stuff out of threaded rod just because of the modularity.  I have an open frame computer case I built that holds 3 computers in the space of one, built entirely out of plexi and threaded rod.  But that one is for another time.

Here’s a close up of the the countersunk hole on the top piece.  I bought a small drill stand when I bought my new drill ( a rather lovely new Milwaukee.  My entire life I have been using my dad’s Milwaukee, so even though I don’t believe in brand loyalty, I know this bastard is gonna last).  With a spade bit mounted in the drill it makes really easy work of  making a 1.25″ diameter countersink.  It even came out level.

Here you can see the threaded rod supporting the shelf.  Also, the area cut away in order to clear the caster regardless of it’s orientation.  I’m really proud of the fact that I changed the design in the middle of building and didn’t waste a single piece of wood.

Final product.  I am super happy with the results, and now I have somewhere to put all my stuff.   It’s great being able to roll it around the office and to be able to make everything move with it.

The whole product set me back a little more than I wanted to spend, but it was worth it.  The bottom counter was $40, the top $90, the legs and casters $40 and the threaded rod, nuts, bolts, and washers were about $50.  Still, $220 and it fits perfectly.  Ikea King Shit, right here.