Weeklong Kitchen and Laundry Project

When we had our old house, we didn't have much storage space since it was just a small bungalow for a family of six What I did then was to buy these plastic coated steel trays and installed them where there was an available blank wall.

That meant walls in kitchen, laundry, garage and even in the bedrooms.

When our now 2-story house was constructed, I thought we'd have all the storage space we needed. I even considered throwing these trays away since most of them have rusted and had chipped plastic coating. Well, good thing is that I didn't.

During the week, I've thought of ways to revive these trays and locate good spots around the house where to mount them. I only chose two areas.

Here's the "dirty" kitchen area. You can see a part of the overhead skylight at the upper right.


And the laundry area.


"That's it?" you may ask, "for a whole week?". Well, there was a lot to do other than just mounting them on the wall. Like I said, some of the trays were heavily rusted.

The following had to be done to make them a bit decent.

1. Peel the plastic coating of sections that have cracked. The plastic coating in these areas has become brittle hence the cracks.
   
2. Use a cutter or a razor blade to smoothen the edges of the coating left on the trays. The raised edges are not only unsightly but rough to the touch too.
   
3. After peeling off the affected coating, look for signs of rusting on the metal.
   
4. For severely rusted areas, rub with sandpaper just to smoothen the surface a bit.
   
5. Brush the rusted areas with a rust converter and allow to dry overnight.
   
6. Paint over the metal areas. I used a white colored quick drying enamel for uniformity. Actually one of the trays had blue coating and I painted the entire thing white.
   

The above took a while to finish because of the drying time required. And that's just the preparation part.

To mount them on the wall, the following had to be done:

1. Choose the right tray for the right spot. Ensure it does not obstruct any window or door swing.
   
2. Choose the appropriate screws for the tray holes.
   
3. Choose the appropriate expansion anchors for the screws.
   
4. Choose the appropriate drill bit.
   
5. Measure and mark the exact location of the drill holes.
   
6. Drill the holes. I have a tip on how to drill the correct hole depth.
   
7. Insert the expansion anchors.
   
8. Position the tray and screw in.
   

Here are a couple that I added in the kitchen area:


A closeup of the attachments in the laundry area. I bought the one on the right as a shower rack at the rented house.

Eventually, it rusted. I cleaned, prepped and painted all of it white. It was originally blue.


Previously it was just set on the counter tiles - no screws. Now, I screwed it up high so the counter tiles below it on the wall can be cleaned easily.

One of the trays that posed a challenge in the mounting is the one below. Notice that two of the three screw holes on the left are too close to the window sill.

I feared if I used the drill bit for the regular big screws I'd break the concrete. So what I did is to use two smaller-sized screws and a couple of washers to hold the tray. Neat, huh?