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Today we made a start on the shelves inside the new cupboards. The shelf supports we bought from Screwfix are the same sort that you use inside kitchen cabinets and are designed to be adjustable. I liked the idea of being able to set the shelves at different heights so in order to drill the holes inside the cupboard we made another jig out of some spare wood. Once complete we set about drilling the shelf holes.

This worked really well, and in no time we had holes drilled in all four cupboards. 

Now it was time to start painting. We stopped by Screwfix again to buy undercoat paint for all of the MDF, then took the doors off the units and got started. Dani made a start with the white emulsion, painting the ceiling, whilst I made a start undercoating the doors. The doors took two coats of undercoat on each side and with 8 doors to paint for this unit alone, it was looking like a big job. 

We had another busy day today on the storage project. We started off early at B&Q again getting some more wood cut. We had MDF cut for the doors and also some MDF sheets to make a shelf across the sop of the units. The shelf had been a last minute addition to the project, it had the benefit of adding a new place for the many books we have, and the added benefit of bringing the height of the sides down to a point where we could fit 4 to a sheet.

After a productive morning at B&Q, we set to work. We made ourself a jig to help us with cutting the holes for the hinges. It's the first time we've used cabinet hinges in one of our projects and we were a bit anxious about getting it right. We started by making a demo up on some MDF offcuts and then when we were happy with it, we turned the demo into a jig. With the template in place, we got the hinge sockets drilled quickly and then spent the rest of the day getting these fitted onto the units. Although the whole unit has to come apart again for painting, we wanted to check and see the doors would all fit as planned and get the holes in place, so we don't have to ruin any painted surfaces later. 

The hinges ended up being so much simpler than we had anticipated and by the time we had finished the day, all doors were in place, perfectly aligned and part of the shelf was measured up.   

Half term has arrived at last, as always it seems to have been a busy one at school, so the break it a nice change of pace. By a change of pace I actually mean we've taken on a big project that will keep us busier than ever tackling our upstairs spare bedroom. We decided a few weeks ago that we wanted to have a bit of a change around, and decorate, but in order to make the most of the room, we needed a bit more storage. We settled on some cupboards to run along the wall under the eave and had already made a start on creating the shells by the time we broke up today.

Last weekend we bought the wood needed to make the shells, MDF for the sides and some timber to brace across. We had the MDF cut to size at B&Q, but still needed to cut out for the angle and the skirting board. We made a template out of cardboard to speed things up and keep all the cuts consistent and then got started with the jigsaw. Over the course of the last week we got all of the pieces cut ready to put them together tonight.

After a nice tea, we got started and before the evening was out we had 4 cupboard shells ready to roll. A great start to the break, but a long way to go!