I've been spending a lot more time in my office lately, but it's been really cluttered because
I've got so many devices that need charging like my iPad, my electric skateboard and accessories,
and camera batteries. And I've been charging most of it through my laptop
dongle which has meant cables all over my desk. So as you can see I've got like cables all over the
floor and my desk is a mess there's like cables everywhere all over here and it's just kind of
driving me nuts. But I recently saw some YouTube tutorials on how to create a charging station
to hang on your wall. I thought this was an amazing idea but I rent so I can't drill anything
into the wall. So I thought maybe I could put a charging station into my old bookshelf instead.
This way there's no need to touch the walls and I can organize my bookshelf a bit better.
As you can see I've got this big bookshelf here which is good but it's a bit messy and
it's kind of a different color to the rest of the stuff in my room. Maybe I could paint
it black! So today I'm going to show you how I created the ultimate gadget charging bookshelf.
So I started out by heading to Ikea to get the pegboard. Home organization: 18.
My bookshelf is an old Ikea one and luckily Ikea had a pegboard that was
the exact width which was perfect. Yeah, that'll fit perfectly!
Next up we needed equipment from Bunnings.
Including paint, a new drill, a saw, some hooks, paint rollers, screws,
and timber to hang the pegboard on. It ended up being a bit more expensive than I'd hoped.
All right so we're now back and this is all the stuff we've got. I've got the little
drill charging over here. So I'm gonna have to take all the books off,
take it all apart and then I'm gonna start painting.
The only place I can really paint in my apartment is on the balcony
so I took the bookshelf out there. And I started by painting the whole bookshelf
with a shellac-based undercoat which luckily dried pretty quickly in about two hours.
All right so we've finished the first coat of the primer. Took a lot longer than I expected
and it was very messy. Got it all of my hands
and on my pants which was great. I just hope I haven't gotten too much on the balcony because
we rent. But it is good fun! I'm having good fun. One coat seemed to do a pretty good job of
covering the veneer on the shelf and so I started to put on the first coat of the black paint.
And then once I'd painted the inside of the bookcase I measured out
the piece of timber I got to mount the pegboard on and sawed it in half.
Then I mounted it to the inside of the shelf with a couple of screws in each piece.
And then I finished off the first coat of black paint and put a second coat on the inside
and left it to dry overnight.
In the meantime, I hadn't worked out exactly where I wanted everything to sit on the pegboard,
so while the paint was drying I just worked out roughly where I wanted everything positioned.
So it's day two and I just got up and I realized I left my camera on overnight
and so it's completely flat. You know what be really useful right now: a charging station.
So pretty much where I'm up to: I've done two coats on the inside through here. It's
looking pretty good actually, it's turned out quite nice. I'm actually pretty happy
with how it's looking. Done one coat on the sides so that's still looking pretty splotchy. And then
all the shelves I've only done one coat on as well. So I might try and get in
another second coat now before I have to head to work. And then the other thing I have done so far
is I've basically just screwed in these pieces of pinewood and that's what I'm going to drill
the lattice onto and then I'll put another shelf under here so it's like a closed compartment
which is where the charging station will just sit. I finished off the black paint
which actually turned out quite well. I had a busy day that day so I didn't get anything
else done. All right so it's now day three of this project. I honestly thought we'd be done
in day one but that was very naive. You can tell I don't do a lot of DIY projects. But I've realized
that I need more hooks from Bunnings and some command strips to attach all my devices to the
pinboard. So that's where I'm heading now; just off the Bunnings to get some more gear.
And then I spent some time mounting all the gear
with the hooks and command strips to the actual pegboard itself.
Next up I drilled in some hooks to the side of the bookshelf to hang my
other skateboard on which actually turned out really well. I was super happy with this part.
Moment of truth..
Then I drilled the pegboard onto the actual bookshelf which fit perfectly. Unfortunately,
the command strips I tried to use to mount my skateboard lights didn't stick to the rubber on
the lights very well and they just fell off. So I had to look for another solution to mount the
skateboard lights. In the meantime, I ordered a USB hub, some extra power cables, and some
cable clips which arrived about a week later and I set them all up on the shelf behind the pegboard.
Also got some cable ties from the local hardware store to mount my skateboard
lights onto which actually worked really well. They don't look amazing as a nice neat clip,
but practically they work really quite well. And the last step was to thread
all the cables through and then organize them neatly using the stick on cable clips.
And that's it! So I've now had this charging station bookshelf set up in my office for about
a week now and I'm loving it, it's great. My desk is much more clutter-free now which is great and
my devices are always ready to go and charged. And it's also super handy having a place to hang
my skateboard because I'm definitely guilty of just leaving it lying around the house. So let
me know your thoughts in the comments. I had heaps of fun making this shelf and hopefully
it gives you some ideas if you're thinking of making something similar. Other than that,
I hope you have an incredible day today and I'll see you very soon in the next video.