Under stairs storage cart

Having moved, we have a lot of rarely used stuff to stow away in the basement. There's a spot under the stairs that could hold a lot of stuff, but it would be hard to get at if I just stacked it all in there.

I built this wheeled platform to roll under a big shelf years ago, and I figured I could adapt it for here, except that the wheels are facing the wrong way.

So I took it to the workshop and reattached the wheels facing the other direction.

But I also wanted the platform a bit longer because the space is fairly deep, so I made new pieces for the wheels on one end to extend them out a little.

... but I needed to add some spacers (made from weathered old plywood) to bring these up to the right level. I then screwed that all down to the extended supports.

I wanted at least one shelf above the platform, and this old card table was just about the right size. But the leg spacing was about 2 cm too wide for the platform.

The legs were originally folding in legs, but the locking mechanisms were broken, so a few years ago I welded the legs in place — partly to practice welding.

I drilled holes in the plastic feet on the ends of the hollow metal legs and put some screws in the platform to put the legs over.

The table has some flexibility, so I was able to push the legs together enough for them to fit over the screws, it held on even as I tipped the platform off the sawhorses.

I used some scrap particle board to make a side for a shelf to fit on the end of the platform not taken up by the table. Here I'm screwing some battens onto the side to hold it together.

I made a recessed handle for the lower shelf to make it easier to pull the shelf later.

Then assembling the shelf unit for the end. The horizontal shelf is made out of a panel glued together from pieces of solid pine, so it's stiff enough to hold the load.

And some plywood gussets to go on the back of the shelf to give it some side-to-side stability.

This time I screwed the shelf part onto the base so the shelf won't tip over as I push or pull on it.

Loaded up with random junk, here pushing the shelf under the stairs. In the background, the basement bookcase I built recently.

With the shelf under the stairs, it's not obvious how much is actually behind it. Made more precisely, it could be hidden storage. To the right, my basement storage solution, which I built back in 2001, two moves ago.