Library Desk Drawer Shelf

My husband collects Hallmark Ornament fire trucks. Actually, he collects fire trucks-most of them are from Hallmark. Here’s an interesting fact: the Hall brothers who founded Hallmark lived in David City, Nebraska way back when. That’s 12 miles from my house.  https://corporate.hallmark.com/about/j-c-hall is a link that tells you more about that. 

Ok-Back to my idea: I found an old, trashed library desk too destroyed for use but the drawers were in good shape. I stashed the drawer under the basement steps for years and my husband used them as another excuse to call me a hoarder—WHICH I AM NOT! I find a use for all I collect eventually. Case in point, 10 years ago or more I pulled an antique ceiling out of a building in town. I used some of that to redo my vanity in my bathroom remodeling project recently.  

Anyway, last week I was cleaning my china cabinet –a craigslist find. A table, chairs, side table and hutch built in 1959-and when I found it on craigslist, the guy wanted $1500 but I had $400. I told him I could only spend $400 so, if he wanted to sell it for that, I was his girl. Six months later he called and I got some damn nice furniture. When we went to get it, we needed 2 pickups and the hutch was really tall. When we got home, my hubby said, “Don’t buy any more tall furniture.”  Its height made it very hard to move—AND now I’m totally off the subject of the library desk.  

So-I saved the drawers from a broken desk and while cleaning the hutch, I thought of them and wondered if I could make shelves to hold fire trucks that I took out of my china cabinet. The drawers are long and shallow but as luck would have it, they fit on a blank space on my living room wall. 

I used liquid nails and glued the drawers together. I held them together with clamps for a couple days.  

Since the trucks are lightweight, I figured construction glue would be enough. If you’re going to shelf something heavy, maybe use screws for support.               

Once the glue was dry, I cut 1x4’s for the shelves to divide each drawer. As luck would have it, 1x4 was as deep as the drawer.  

I stained the new boards with gel stain. It’s not a perfect match but the drawers are old so the difference in color worked.

My husband helped me hang the shelf on the wall—and its level enough. I’ve said before how I feel about level—it’s only a suggestion in my house where nothing is plumb. 

The shelf is perfect for what I needed and it solved more than one problem at my house. I now have room for more stuff in my china hutch. There’s a designated space for the amassing collection of fire trucks and, I’ve AGAIN proved to my husband that I am not a hoarder.