Shelves Over the Stairs for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCVI

over-the-stairs shelving

Besides the obvious problem of letting people who know nothing of carpentry write carpentry and woodworking instructions, readers are occasionally also exposed to some rather strange verbiage mixed into the steps. A weird notion caught our staffer's eye while vetting today's DotD nominee, but when she looked at the actual instructions, she knew she had a winner. We're talking about returning awardee Kasandra Rose and her HomeSteady.com attempt to tell people "How to Build Storage Shelves Above Stairs." We're here to say, "Epic fail, Kasandra!"

First things first: here's the line that caught the staffer's eye, somewhere in Rose's introduction,

"On the rare occasion when you are schlepping a half-sized, plush, stuffed giraffe up to your daughter's bedroom, the empty overhead space can come in handy."

Never mind the cutesy, let's get on to  the dumbassery. Kasandra managed to reword someone else's instructions for working in a stairwell, although we thought that the instruction to,

"Slide a scaffold plank between the ladder supports and onto a rung that closely matches the height of one of the stairs..."

...had a couple of problems: first, what everyday homeowner has a spare "scaffold plank" lying around and second, it'd be a good idea to clamp said "plank" in place before standing on it. But that's just a quibble. No, where Kasandra utterly blew it was in her ignorance of dimensional lumber – a common failing among eHow.com's stable of lumber-ignorant freelancers. Here's why we say that, direct from Rose's instructions.

• "Measure the distance across the wall where you want the shelving..."
• "Subtract 2 inches from the back wall measurement, and cut a 1-by-2-inch board this length."
• "Cut two more pieces of 1-by-2-inch board to the depth that you want the shelf..."

There you go: Rose thinks a 1-by-2 is an inch thick¹... not to mention that a 1-by-3 or 1-by-4 would be look better, not to mention more sturdy. Kasandra also wants her readers to cut the shelf from ¾-inch plywood, and,

"Sand all of the edges with 200-grit sandpaper..."

...which, for our money, is proof positive that Kasandra has no idea what the edge of plywood looks like. We think you either need to add a length of solid wood trim or some edge banding to make it look less... industrial.

Rose also has other problems, including such strange pronouncements as, 

"It is important that the shelf is level with gravity, not with the floor..."

...a condition we would probably call "horizontal." And then there's this,

"Do not store very heavy objects on this shelf if you made it deeper than 18 inches, or the wood will bow in the center..."

...which seems to us would be more likely if the shelf were more than 18 inches wide. But what do we know? None of us has a MA in biology to draw upon; not like our Dumbass of the Day. Or her plush giraffe...

¹ It isn't: a 1-by-2 is 1½" by ¾"...

DDIY - STORAGE