Because playing on the computer is oh-so-much more productive than doing actual housework, I decided to try out the capabilities of Google Sketchup.   I had heard of sketchup through the awesome blog Knock-off Wood and Oak’s Family Handyman magazine.   Let’s just say it’s a nerd-tastic program.  If you were an engineering major, it probably would be like second nature, or something.  (There are axes! Are you baffled yet?)  I kind of figured out some of its basic functionality based on this handy tutorial.

It *could* be a lot flexible in its operations — you can’t change the dimensions of an object after you draw it (as far as I can tell), so my Adobe Illustrator-oriented mind had a hard time grasping it.    However, I caught on enough to come up with a 3-D model of the shelving that I want for the inside of the craft room closet:

Groovy eh? I can’t tell you how useful this model is for actually building the project because we haven’t even started to attempt to build it yet.  Like.. how do you know what the dimensions of all of the pieces are??  You can’t click an object and find that out.. there’s a little ruler tool you can use to measure things.  What a pain!

I did draw it out on paper and figured out all the dimensions ahead of time – you get one chance to put in dimensions before the object is drawn forever.  I really don’t see how you could do anything free-form with this program (maybe someone else knows better?  I could watch some more tutorials.. lol)

My idea with the extra space at the bottom of the right hand side shelves is that I can put the wrapping paper and other tall items in there with the piece of wood on the front to “corral it in.”   The heights of the middle shelves are adjustable because I want to use shelving standards.  We shall see.

Oh, and I want a shelf that goes across the top but I got frustrated with trying to draw one and gave up. 

Now it’s time to develop my non-existent woodworking skills…  stay tuned.

Posted by Carrie on Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Categories: home improvement · 1 Comment »