magazine rack

every year around this time, all the fantasy baseball magazines come out, and brian has to buy them all. every single one. most of them live in the magazine basket in the downstairs bathroom, but one or two or four inevitably migrate upstairs into the water closet in our master bath. generally they live on the floor until the following year (because you can't discard them once the season is over, because... um... well, i'm not really sure why) although sometimes they manage to hop up onto the back of the toilet and compete for space with the reed diffuser, which generally loses and finds its way up onto the windowsill.

i hate this migration. with a passion. it is so messy and cluttery and annoying and everything is always in my way. besides, i'm not really sure what we need with FOURTEEN baseball magazines, but he would probably same the same thing about my closetful of fabric. which everyone knows is a necessity because what if the power went out during a snowstorm, HOW WOULD WE STAY WARM.

but i digress. here is the point of all this ranting and rambling:


yes folks, i built that! this weekend! i had been looking for months for a small, wall-mounted, wooden magazine rack, but everything i found was either too office-y or in the ballpark of $39 and up. for a magazine rack. to hold magazines. glossy, bound, pieces of paper with pictures and writing that only cost $4.95.

this cost me $4. four dollars.

let me repeat that: FOUR DOLLARS. AMERICAN.

i built it out of primed mdf trim that i picked up at home depot, and a dowel that i cut to size. the trim is sold by the linear foot for something like 69c/lf. i don't know, that might be expensive when it comes to baseboards for an entire house, but since i only needed 3-4 feet, it was great for me. i slipped a piece of quarter-round into the bottom so the magazines wouldn't slide out the front, and the dowel pieces are slipped into little holes i drilled into the sides. a little glue and some tiny nails from my staple/nail gun, and some spackle to fill in the cracks, and i was ready to paint it. i would have preferred wood stained to match our cabinetry, but i don't have the tools or skills to make anything pretty enough to be stained. the paint is touch-up paint for our trim, so it goes with the house perfectly.

i am so ridiculously proud of this. i want to sit in my bathroom forever just to look at it.

this is my parents' legacy to me, and hopefully to hannah also: if you can't find what you want, then just build it, sew it, scrap it, knit it, craft it, cook it, bake it, make it.