DiY In-Wall First Aid Cabinet
by
Handan & Greg @ The Navage Patch
(IC: blogger)
Walls: the Final Frontier
I work with my hands. Any given day may find them thrust into dirt, wrapped around a wrench, grasping boulders or feeding wood into machines with sharp, fast-moving parts. Hands slip. Skin flies. Since I’ve started on this road of DiY self-sufficiency, I’ve become well-acquainted with the first aid drawer – the second drawer of Big Red.
I work with my hands. Any given day may find them thrust into dirt, wrapped around a wrench, grasping boulders or feeding wood into machines with sharp, fast-moving parts. Hands slip. Skin flies. Since I’ve started on this road of DiY self-sufficiency, I’ve become well-acquainted with the first aid drawer – the second drawer of Big Red.
It held everything I needed for my near-daily ministrations to my flayed and battered hands – Band Aids, Neosporin, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, tweezers – if I could find them. Band Aids were easy – they were always on top. The alcohol and H2O2 were also easy – they reside in large bottles. But the tweezers and the Neosporin – they could have been anywhere, hiding down in the cracks, laughing as blood dripped from my palm, snickering at the splinter sticking out from my fingertip. And then there was Handan.
(Why yes, I AM aware that my microwave is greasy, thank you! Oh, and yes, I AM aware that it is covered in unsightly cleaning products. Why do you ask?)
I found the studs right where I was expecting to find them. But I found something else as well. Let’s call it The Anomaly. In construction, studs are always set 16 inches apart. This makes it easy to remove pieces of drywall or screw heavy things into the studs. If you can find one, you can find them all. So my two sides were well established, but I kept getting an odd reading on the stud finder in-between the two studs. Back and forth I went, always the same anomalous reading. I decided to probe for The Anomaly with a small drill bit. I went across the top line I had drawn on the wall, drilling in every so often to see if I hit resistance.
Nothing! No resistance. Figuring my finder was more dud than stud, I whipped out my multi-tool and started hacking apart my wall. What could possibly go wrong? I had probed!
I cut out my pre-marked rectangle and pulled out a big slab of drywall. Success!
My mind popped and sputtered as it tried to make sense of this thing. I had probed, dammit!
Who the hell builds a house with phantom pipes and ghost wires? Hmmmmm…
I forgot that this house was plumbed for central vacuuming, but the original owners never had the vacuum unit installed. Excellent. I went back downstairs and cut through the pipe and the wire, as I have no desire for central vacuuming.
…then pulled out the pink stuff.
So I was back on track and ready to build. I went downstairs to my sawdust warehouse and got to work on the cabinet.
I built the cabinet and shelves out of a mix of 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch plywood.
At this point, I brought it upstairs to see if it fit in the hole. It did. I left it there until Handan came home so she could see it and shower me with praise.
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Published August 10th, 2016 11:28 AM
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4 of 6 comments
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Hillela G. on Aug 11, 2016Awesome idea! So necessary!
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Michelle Leslie on Aug 24, 2016Ouch, know the feeling. Love your blueprint, lol!!
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Handan & Greg @ The Navage Patch on Aug 25, 2016Thanks, Michelle!
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