This was a really fun project, but it came to be out of necessity. The house we lived in at the time had very limited storage space, especially in the upstairs bedrooms.
To make the most of the space available, we had a storage bed in one of the bedrooms. This bed has eight large drawers and two cupboards built into its base. Back then (2015), we used them to store everything from bed linen and clothing to makeup, jewllery and random bits and bobs.
The one failing of this system was the lack of order, with everything jumbled up together. And so I decided to try my hand at making a drawer divider system to help keep things separated and organised.
Historically, I had demonstrated no aptitude whatsoever for DIY projects, however, I was absolutely determined to make this work as I was so tired of the mess.
I had several rolls of fabric left over from years ago so I picked out one to use as the base colour of the interior of the drawer and dividers, plus a second fabric to use for the trim.
Other than that, all I required was:
- foamboard
- adhesive spray
- a measuring tape/ruler
- pencil
- cutting mat
- box cutter
- scissors
- and a black cat for luck and moral support (optional).
The first thing I did was measure the internal length, width and height of the drawers.
Then I carefully sketched onto the foamboard the different pieces to be cut out: the bottom piece, two shorter sides, two longer sides and some dividers (these were exactly the same measurements as the pieces for the two shorter sides).
Next, I cut out all the pieces with a box cutter, and made sure each piece fit properly inside the drawer.
With all the pieces of foamboard cut, I got out my base colour fabric. Using the foamboard pieces as guides, I cut out a piece of fabric to cover one side of the largest cut piece of foamboard for the bottom of the drawer, leaving approximately one inch of overhang on all four sides.
For the rest, I cut out pieces of material big enough to cover both sides of each foamboard piece.
Moving onto the trim fabric, I measured out and cut 2 inch wide strips to fit the length of each piece (other than the bottom piece which obviously did not require any trim).
After that, it was just a matter of using the spray adhesive to glue the fabric to each piece of foamboard, and then repeat the process by gluing on the trim.
And that was it!
Because I had measured and cut everything very precisely, there was no need to use glue to hold the foamboard in place. It all slotted together nice and tight, but leaving me with the option to move/remove the divider sections as needed.
All that was left was to organise everything in the drawers!
Years later, we still have the bed and the drawer dividers. They keep everything neat and organised.
In fact, since making these drawer dividers, Tim and I applied the techniques we learned in this project to make bespoke cutlery drawer dividers and other drawer dividers to keep items throughout our home well organised.
The only difference is that instead of fabric, we used vinyl wallpaper samples to cover the foamboard because it is easy to wipe clean with a damp cloth.
As these dividers are a more complex design, we used Super PVA glue to glue each slot in place along the bottom edge to the base piece, and added little sewing pins to give the whole structure extra sturdiness.
I’ve been wanting to do this project now for awhile as our storage space also has no smaller compartment sections throughout our home. The new website looks great! Trace (Tracey Go Lightly/Forestserenity)