Prettied-Up Gear Storage

So yeah, this is only triathlon related because these beauties now house my extra gear that was previously just thrown randomly in the corner.

This is what they looked like when I rescued them from the basement.  This is AFTER I washed them.  Still  pretty stained and nasty looking after riding around in hubby's vet truck for several years.

This project was super-easy and used materials that I already had around the house: spray paint, fabric remnants, and white glue.

The first step was to spray paint the frames and part of the drawer-fronts.  Please excuse the lighting.  The flash went off for some photos and not for others.  That really is the same color paint in both photos.  I have no idea what that pink artifact is.  Make sure you let them dry thoroughly before going to the next step or you will be cussing the smudges and fingerprints you made in your lovely paint job.

The next thing I did was adhere the fabric to the drawer fronts using a mixture of half white glue, half water.  I just painted it on with a regular brush, positioned the fabric where I wanted it (allowing for overlap on all sides), and painted over the top of the fabric with the glue mixture.  There is no need to let that first coat under the fabric dry first.  In fact, you don't want it to dry.  Painting another coat over top of the still wet fabric allows you to easily remove any air bubbles.  I don't have any photos of the actual process for one reason: Liam.  I did this while he was occupied with his puzzles in the other room and didn't want to draw attention to what I was doing by taking photos or taking any longer than absolutely necessary.  Let these dry overnight.  Again, don't touch them before they are thoroughly dry.

You could put another coat of the glue mixture on the following day, but I am impatient  decided that one was enough and proceeded to the next step: cutting off the excess.  This is a rotary cutting tool, used a lot by quilters.  I LOVE this tool.  I do a lot of sewing and crafting without patterns and this makes it easy to cut a nice straight line.  This thing is super-sharp and leaves a nice clean edge so I knew it would be perfect for this application.  I used this to cut the excess fabric from around all edges of the drawer, gluing any edges down that weren't completely adhered.

The drawers were then, essentially done, but do you remember the big green stain from the before photo? No?  Here it is again:

Inside that drawer on the bottom is a stain from a lovely equine product called Kopertox.  Again, this is what it looked like AFTER I scrubbed it.  To avoid getting any of this lovely green on my tri gear, I found this brand-new roll of contact paper in the closet.  It apparently came with the house...

And I lined the inside of the stained drawer.  But only the stained part, 'cause I'm lazy.  Besides, the purpose of the contact paper is function, not beauty.

And, once again, here's the finished project:

I love how well these turned out.  I thought of doing a collage with my race bibs on the drawer fronts, but since these will likely be used for a different purpose when we move next year, I wanted them to be able to fit in other rooms easily.  I continued to hoard my old race bibs for another day...