Paint Racks

04.30.2024

I have paint. A lot of paint. The main reason for my lofty oversupply of paint is that I can't really tell shades or hues that are close, so when a paint scheme spells out the colors to use then those are the colors I have to use. I also like any paint that brands itself as making painting easier - I'm looking at you shades, washes, contrast, and speed paints. It's only natural that when Army Painter came out with a new.., well, line of paint that I would wonder how I could live without it. I mean, their last Speed Paint line made painting soooo much easier, just imagine what this new line would do. Plus, it's made for hue and shade matching impaired folks like myself as there are tips on the label for what paints match for highlights and tones.

But the problem this begat was... were to store this stuff? Currently (well, at the time) all my paints and paint related tools are in the closet. Mainly on 2 wire shelving racks on casters, each rack is 14" x 16" footprint and about 6 feet tall. 1 rack is all paint in shoe boxes, which I've sorted into boxes in categories that make sense to me. The other shelf has some scenery, bases, and cast-off test minis that will never get finished. I've wanted to use some proper paint racks for a while, but I just haven't had the desk (or wall) space. But maybe I could make something utilizing the shelf racks I have?

Well, not the actual shelf racks, but the footprint they take up. The Litko paint racks are 22" wide. That's too wide for a 14x16 shelf. I did a quick test, using the center handle on the paint rack. I quickly found that is not a spot of structural integrity to support all the weight at 1 point. The paint rack has holes for screws/mounting on the outer corners to take proper weight distribution into account. So I need something wider. And everything still needs to fit in the same space and through the closet door. With the door open, that doorway is just under 22" wide. The paint racks will have to go into the closet length-wise... The paint racks are roughly 5" deep, which gives me a shelf that needs to be at least 22" long to support the paint rack, and no more than 17" deep for everything to fit through the door. It's a shame I can't just merge the 2 shelf racks I have now. But I can do the next best thing and order the 14x30 shelf rack on Amazon!

The new shelf came in and I assembled it, all while not telling anyone my plan since it started out so half-assed I had no idea if it would work. Thanks to a recent liberal use of zip-ties, I wanted to try using them to secure the paint racks to the wire shelves. But (vertical) spacing was also key here, as I wanted to maximize my usage of what's available. What's something cheap, yet relatively sturdy and straight, to help with that? Yard sticks. Yard sticks with holes drilled in them. And yard sticks have built in measuring for any spacing! And thus I decided to attach yard sticks to the wire shelves, and then paint racks to the yard sticks. All using zip ties.

The damndest thing is, it seems to work.

I now have paint racks with space for 502 pots of paint, all neatly organized and accessible. On the other side, where shelves live, I still have show boxes sorted by categories I'll look for. Along with that are things I can wheel around that come in handy when painting, gluing, whatever. Wheeling is a little more important now as I've moved my hobby space from my office desk (4 ft from the closet all of this stays stored away in) to the never eaten at dining table (2 rooms away).

For the 14x16 shelves, the 2 5-shelf units have been combined into 1 9-shelf unit and moved to a different closet to see if it's going to work for some more dedicated scenery storage (with wheels!). That was kind of a last minute decision, so we'll see if that sticks long term.

Permalink feng shui random renovation/remodelling