The table is always a mess—full of electronics. Tidying up is not fun, so a shelf was built instead.
The constant state of chaos around the table never really bothered anyone. It got tidied up from time to time—maybe once a year. But spending more time in the room made it feel like the time had come to bring some order to the chaos. Browsing furniture-organization ideas on Pinterest was the final push to start working on a solution.
An engineering background helps with problem-solving, but woodwork was new—at least at the start.
The table could be tidied up with better organization. Instead, the goal here was to build a structure to store things—more like a shelf.
A quick mock-up of the table and shelf structure was drawn in Tinkercad. Then came the first carpentry tool: a circular saw. A standard MDF panel (1m x 0.5m) came from the local hardware store.
After jotting down some rough calculations on paper, those measurements were marked onto the MDF panel with a pencil.
Cutting through the marked lines was more difficult (and dangerous) than expected. The circular saw kept jumping up and down, most likely due to poor placement. Add a lack of protective equipment, and it was the perfect recipe for a disaster.
Test fitting
Once the panels were cut to spec, they were coated with primer and then painted black (the only color available at the hardware store).
To keep a clean look, visible support brackets were not an option. After some intense googling, the following approach worked well:
- Attach screws to the wall that stand about 1cm-2cm.
- Make grooves on the panel for the screw head to slide through and lock itself.
Finally, a red curtain went up to get that high contrast.
Overall, not bad for a first carpentry project—after all, everyone has to start somewhere.