Since Melissa decided on keeping the metal shelf in the garage, we figured that adding wheels would make it more functional.

 

 

 

We also gave it a face lift by switching out the drawer front.

We just so happened to have some wheels that would work perfectly, the only problem: they were in use. You may remember that Ted and I broke down the coffee table that was sitting in our garage. I kept the bottom piece, which had the wheels attached to it.

So I removed the blocks holding the wheels from the table.

Luckily, when the wheels were put in by the manufacturer, they drilled a hole through the block, making it really easy to remove the wheels using a metal punch and a hammer.

Once they were removed, I needed to create a new holding plug that would go inside the leg of the cabinet. So after I knew the size that I needed, I grabbed some scrap wood and used my table saw to rip cut down the plug to the right size. (When working with small pieces, ALWAYS use a “push stick” to guide the wood you are cutting!)

 

I had to trim these a couple of times to get them to the right size because the bottom of the metal shelf legs had been beaten up a bit so they weren’t perfectly square, which means my wooden plugs weren’t going to fit perfectly into the holes. But we dealt with that later.

After getting my plugs to the right size, I pulled out the vice, so that I could hold the plugs in place while I drilled out the center to make a hole to hold the wheels.

The last step was to put the plugs into the shelf unit. The plugs were a little bit loose, which was okay because we needed to secure it in place. We used hot glue because it’s fast drying and would easily fill in the gaps (something like super glue would take a lot more glue to fill the space and something like silicone wouldn’t be as fast drying). I filled the hole and then put more glue around the outside of the plug while it was being inserted.

Still, we know hot glue doesn’t scream “permanent solution,” so before you second-guess this method, we had a couple of unique factors that played into this decision:

1. The wheel casing was larger than the plug, which means it wouldn’t slip down into the metal legs of the shelf no matter how loose the wooden plug was. So, we didn’t have to worry about the plug being lost in the leg of the shelf.
2. The only reason we even needed to secure the wheel plugs in the legs was in case we ever lifted the shelf off the ground and the loose plugs slipped out a little bit. (Basically, this means, the hot glue isn’t essential to the structural soundness of the unit. It’s just a precaution.

Finally, I pushed the wheels into the plugs. It takes a little bit of force to pop them all the way into place.

So, after about an hour’s work, we went from having a child’s night stand to having a rolling garage cart. Melissa cleaned it up with a rag and then replaced the front panel that was covered in stickers with one of the green ones that came with the set when we bought it.

It was a pretty quick swap and I let her do that while I started mowing the yard. As Melissa already said, we had a busy afternoon full of progress.

Overall, we’re really pleased with how this quick little update turned out. It was very easy and really, the entire little rolling cart only cost us the $5 we paid for it at the garage sale. The wheels and other supplies were all free/scrap/leftover from other projects. That’s a pretty cheap storage solution when you consider what a similar cart would retail for. (About 100 bucks, if you don’t want to click through for the link.)

And, it’s always fun to take something found at a garage sale and give it new life as something a little bit fresh and different. Of course, the top is still kind of gross looking, but it isn’t sticky or rotten at all, so we plan to just leave it for now since it will get messed up/painted on/dirty in the garage anyway. We can always replace it or paint it later on if we decide to do that.

Then, we had the fun of moving into the unit a little bit, which was a challenge because we disagreed a little on what should go inside the drawer. Plus, we still have a lot of organization to build into that garage someday so I wanted to think ahead to what we might use the cart for in the future. Still, we added a few things to the drawer and the shelves below.

 

And the best part is that it fits neatly underneath the workbench so there’s still plenty of room for Rhonda but we can roll this out for a work surface anytime we need it.

 

Overall, it was a project that went very smoothly. And you could definitely do this with any old piece of furniture you had that you weren’t using in the house anymore.

Tell us what you’d use this new rolling cart to store? Have you ever found something at a garage sale and transformed it into something new? Have you ever used hot glue to fix a DIY project?