Sunday, July 29, 2012

Organization Overload! My new teacher toolbox. :-)

I'm sure if you're a teacher and have been on Pinterest lately you've seen the teacher toolboxes made out of hardware organizers from Lowe's.  As soon as I saw the first picture of one I knew I had to have it and ran right out to Lowe's.  It took me forever to find the little suckers.  I thought they would be with the toolboxes or the hardware like screws, nuts, etc. Well, I was wrong.  They were stuck in a tiny part of an aisle in the middle of the store.  But hey, at least I had found what I was looking for!

Once I found them though I had to determine which one I was going to get.  I finally decided to go with the bigger one with 39 drawers.  I figured I would rather get the bigger one and have extra drawers than get the smaller one and not have enough.  Not only that, but the bigger one was only a couple of dollars more than the 22 drawer version.  The 22 drawers is $16.47 and the 39 drawer is $19.96.  If you'd like to see the one that I bought and all of the dimensions, details, etc, you can see it on Lowe's page HERE.

The color is an ugly shade of blue, so I decided to spray paint it a turquoise color to match my classroom. I picked up a can of Valspar spray paint in the color Exotic Sea.  


I took all of the drawers out and started spray painting.  It took 2 coats of spray paint, making sure to get all of the sides and pieces that the drawers slide in.  Here is what it looked like after paint.


Then the project sat for almost 2 weeks.  We had a big birthday party for my daughter that I had to get everything ready for and I had bought her a desk, mirror and chair that she was begging me to finish up making into her a vanity.  I'm so thankful that I waited.  I had been going back and forth on what type of paper to use for the drawers and how to get my labels just right.  Then, I found it.  A pinner on Pinterest posted a link to a blog were the teacher was giving away the cutest clipart labels made specifically for the Stack-On organizer.  They were perfect - already sized, in my classroom colors and they could be personalized.  Here labels were for the 22 drawer Stack-On, which meant I had to print 2 sets of labels.  If you end up doing this project and want the labels, you can find them on Kristen Doyle's Teachers Pay Teachers page HERE.

Her labels are already pre-labeled with many of the common school supply items, so I just left those as is.  I then added extra things that I knew I wanted to store in my teacher toolbox.  I printed them, cut them out and used double-sided tape to attach them to the inside of the drawers.  And here's my final product!


I must say, I really love it!  I can't wait to take it to school this week and fill it up with goodies!

8 comments:

  1. Thank you!!!!!!!!!! I am not a handy husband at all but I think I can get this one done for my wife!!!!!!!!!! she is the teacher :-)

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  2. Love it...going to give it a try!

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  3. I found that mine was far too short depth wise to fit highlighters or pens or anything. Did you find that? Is yours deep enough?

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    1. I actually measure my markers before I went to the store so I haven’t bought one because I am concerned about having that problem and you are the only post I have seen to address that issue!

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  4. Thank you!! I just made this and can't wait to use it in the classroom! I printed the labels on a full sheet label paper and then cut with a paper cutter. This worked great! Thanks again for sharing!!

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  5. Does this model have room for pencils and highlighters?

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  6. If you have a stack-on 39 drawer small tool organizer you may want to get rid of it. They have been recalled for having the chemicals Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) in the plastic which causes cancer.

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  7. Hi, What are the dimensions of the small and the larger box

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