The Idea For the Mini-Shelf
It is always nice to have a proper spot to place a drink, or in these days, a cell phone. The proper place is not the floor, especially on a patio or other outdoor place, and sometimes putting a drink on your own chair or lap can be ... dicey. The proper answer is stable shelf or side table, something that was lacking within arm's reach of one patio chair nestled into a corner. So, given my quantity of scrapwood, I thought about how to make a shelf that would fit into the fence, but not require being fastened to the fence with nails or screws.
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| Pile of scrapwood, aka inspiration material |
The Prototype
The fence has alternating vertical pieces, these vertical pieces are fastened to horizontal wood pieces running parallel to the ground. One of the horizontal pieces is approximately 3 ft above the bottom of the fence, making it the perfect height for a mini shelf. I came up with a T-shaped design for the shelf, with the bottom support provided by a small block of wood.
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| Mini-shelf, top view. |
In the picture ABOVE you can see how the narrow side arms of the 'T' shape had to be no thicker (when laid horizontally) than the space between the vertical fence posts, which is roughly equal to the thickness of a 2x4. The screw near the top is what held the small supporting block on the base. In the picture BELOW you can see the nail from the bottom of the shelf, on this prototype the small supporting block of wood split in half when I screwed through it - which is actually kind of helpful for showing the cross-section here.
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| Mini-shelf, bottom-view. |
The IMPORTANT part was that my idea worked! The shelf laid flat and stayed put by being braced between the vertical fence posts and was held level by the lower small block.
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| Mini-shelf, side-view. |
Conclusion
After finalizing the measurements on the prototype mini-shelf I made another version of the shelf, with slightly neater cuts and maybe even some sanding to smooth the edges. I then used a stencil to apply a purple floral mandala-type design. After the paint was dry I coated the entire mini-shelf piece with polyurethane for protection from the elements.
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| Completed mini-shelf |
You can see that this mini-shelf is the perfect size to hold a drink, a phone, or as one might expect in a patio space -- some gardening supplies.
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| Completed mini-shelf holding pruning scissors and twine. |
Happy freestyling, prototyping, and gardening!
