Bath Tray!

 So, THIS is the slightly larger project I've been working on. 

For Christmas Rachel gave me a book about ritual bathing in tune with the lunar cycle. Man, I love how delightfully witchy that sounds. Anyways. I love the book and have decided to work my way through it's list of different herbal baths. I've started collecting herbs and oils and salts and whatnot, and I decided I needed some accessories to increase my comfort while in the tub to increase the amount of time I could stay in the tub.

After the expense of my Battleshots project, I really wanted to keep this low cost. I had a little bath pillow but I wanted a full size bath cushion to pad my back and hips.  I was able to cash in some points for a gift card on Amazon and bought myself this cushion:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071YQG8R3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It came with a konjac sponge and a carrying bag and after a test run full moon bath last week I can confirm it makes my sitting in a tub much more comfortable.

The other important accessory I needed was a bath tray, a place to set candles and my phone and a glass of wine. (Obviously.)

Sure, you can buy them but damn I didn't want to drop another $50 on a tray. And I also knew that I had a pretty good selection of wood and hardware from old projects, as well as a decent sized plank of wood and a selection of trims and wood scraps my mom had left in the garage, not to mention leftover stain and polycrylic spray for a top coat. I was pretty sure I could come up with supplies to make a bath tray just from what I had on hand. So I set an optimistic goal of not spending any money on this project, and started making plans. 

First of all I started looking for tutorials and feature ideas. In the end I didn't really feel like I needed a tutorial, everything was pretty simple, I just needed to figure out what I wanted on my tray. The two main things I needed were a wine glass holder and a phone holder for the ability to watch a show or something while in the tub. If possible I also wanted a hook or holder or something on the edge of the board to hang a towel on so I could easily dry my hands to use my phone. I found a few ideas I liked:

So, sure, I could just do a flat plank of wood, it would do the job, but that's boring.

This one had my original idea for the wine glass holder, a notch with a circle cut around it. I have a jigsaw, I could easily cut that notch. I wasn't sure how I'd do the circle though, I don't really have the right tools to do that easily. And as I continued thinking about this, I imagined a stem of a wine glass hanging down from the tray, and with my long legs there's like a zero percent chance I don't at some point crash my knees into that hanging stem resulting in a tragedy of spilled wine and potential broken glass in the tub. I needed a new plan.

I thought about the little candle holders on the far end too, but I use candles of all sorts of sizes and didn't want to have set candle sizes.

I didn't really feel like I needed a book or tablet holder like this one, I don't own a tablet and any time I get a book near a tub I have nightmares about dropping it in the tub and ending up with an unrecoverable block of sodden paper. (And yet it's easier for me to bring my $800 electronic phone to the tub? WHAT?) But I really liked the outlined square for the candle there in the corner. Not necessarily for a candle, but to hold a wine glass. This would solve the hanging stem problem. I also liked the raised edge all around the borders to keep things from sliding off. I still had a pile of 1/2" square dowels I had bought thinking I might use them to extend the edges of the panels on my Battleshots to reach the edges of the center frame, but ended up not doing that. I didn't see any reason to return the dowels, you never know what you'll find a use for, and here we go. Those would be perfect to add the wine glass square and the border.

This one had the towel holder I wanted, just have the board extend past the tub and cut a hole in it, I love that. I can do that, my jigsaw is meant for that. 

I just like the aesthetic of this one, the darker wood and the white mandala. That's how I decided I wanted to decorate mine. Not sure how I was going to manage the design with my no spending plan, but I could probably make a stencil for it. 

The last problem I had was a mount for my phone. I looked at a dozen different ideas for building phone holders, or just routering a notch in the board that it could sit in, but the problem was everything had the phone tilting pretty far back, and I want to be able to sink down into the tub and still see my phone, without it being in danger of ending up in the tub. The closest I got was an idea to add popsicle sticks to a mini easel to make a rest for the phone, but even then, the angle was still wrong and I just didn't like my phone sitting loose like that. I tried to bring my creative mind in and design something, but I just got nowhere. And then I found this:

That, if you can't tell, is a smartphone adapter for a camera tripod screwed directly into the board. And that's....... that's just perfect. It's exactly what I want. The straight on angle, the clamping of the phone in place, it's everything I want. There was no way I could build anything that perfect. 

And thus, my no spend goal died. HOWEVER. I did find one for only $5, so really, I'm still not doing too badly. Although that did lead to me buying a stencil for the design in resignation. Since the rule was broken anyways, why not make my decorating plan a little simpler. 

I should also note, I loved the handles on this idea but I utterly refused to buy handles for mine. I happened to have a stockpile of old drawer knobs, a very long time ago I had replaced all the drawer knobs on my daughter's dresser with pink crystal diamond knobs. She had outgrown and replaced them, but I saved them. With the help of a gold paint pen I painted them to make them fit my aesthetic a little more and figured I would attach them at the end to give something to grab onto to lift the tray.

I also TECHNICALLY broke my no spend rule here, but I'm not counting it. The screws that came with these knobs would not be long enough to reach through the board and the trim, so I went out and bought some longer screws. However, after a minor side project where I bought a hardware organizer and sorted out my stockpile of screws and nails and washers I've been building for years from hardware leftover from build it yourself furniture, I found that I actually already had some screws that were the perfect length for this. So I'm NOT COUNTING the like $2 I spent on the screws, even if it was only $2. I used the screws I already had, and the ones I bought are unrelated and will be saved for something else. 

So. I had an idea for the design, now it was time to build. 

My first idea involved the mug rack I made myself when I lived in the apartment I was in previously. I have more cupboard space than I know what to do with in my house so there has been no need for the mug rack and really, nowhere for it to go, so it had just been sitting unloved in the garage. I decided I would repurpose it for this project. 

I spent an ungodly amount of time removing all the hooks, those got their own drawer in my hardware organizer, I suppose I'll never need to buy a hook to hang things on ever again! I then briefly attempted to disassemble the pallet without cutting the boards, because the width of the pallet ended up being exactly the length I wanted to have the board extend out for my towel slot, I figured I could just dowel and edge glue probably three board together to get the width.

Well, trying to yank those nails out got old FAST. God, that was hard. I got one board out and immediately decided that sucked. I got out my jigsaw and cut the boards away from the end pieces, then all I had to do was pry them off the center board which wasn't quite so bad. Still a pain though. I figured I'd just add some short boards vertically to the end to make it long enough. 

Anyways, got the boards all separated. I went through them and picked out the three straightest nicest looking boards, which was not easy, pallet boards are pretty messy. I then spent a freaking eternity sanding the boards to remove the paint I had put on it for it's mug rack form, and also to smooth out the horrible roughness of the boards. I had sanded them a little when I made it in to a mug rack, but not nearly enough. I knew I would probably not have the patience to sand all the paint off, so I probably wouldn't be able to stain this, it would need to be painted over, but I was fine with that.

After that I lined up and drilled some dowel holes and started working on gluing the boards together. But almost immediately I was in trouble. The first two boards cupped inward dramatically while they were clamped and gluing. I tried to get the third board straighter, but it was still badly curved. 

I tried to fix it by clamping the board glued boards to my workbench to force it to be flat and just left it sitting there for like two days, which did help, but it was still pretty warpy. Maybe if I had a planer I could have fixed it? But I could tell I was setting myself up for a world of frustration working with this warpy wavy board. And maybe not going to end up with a great surface for setting lit candles and large glasses of liquid on.

I don't know how well you can see the wave, but it seems pretty wavy to me. You can see it's unevenness better in person, when you set it on a flat surface it's got an awful lot of rock back and forth. It could be worse I suppose, but still didn't seem steady for the things I want to set on it.

At this point, I started thinking about the rather large plank of wood my mom had left in the garage. It was probably five feet tall and a little less than three feet wide, with some random jaggedy parts sticking off of it from whatever what cut out of it originally. I would probably save myself a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge amount of frustration and heartbreak if I just cut myself a rectangle out of that and started over. And I could do it, I'm not afraid of my table saw anymore!

Also, side benefit, since it was a nice clean plank of wood with no paint already on it, it would then allow me to just stain the wood instead of having to paint it, which is what I really wanted anyways. Painted would be fine, but most of my inspiration pictures were stained wood and I really preferred that look. Plus I had leftover stain from Battleshots!

So I rejected the pallet board contraption. Maybe I'll find another use for those pallet boards. Cutting out a new rectangle was a little difficult, big boards on the table saw are awkward, but I handled it. And come to find out, that little under 3 feet width was just the perfect width to span the tub and hang over a few inches. It was PERFECT for the towel rack. One cut for width, trim the uneven end to make it square and it was perfect. 

If you want to know, in the end my board was 33 1/2" long and 11 3/4" wide, and 1/2" thick. This was the maximum width I could get based on the weird jaggedy cuts that were already in the board. It was a very random scrap of wood. 

This is what the board looked like after I cut off my piece, the arrow is pointing to the end I cut off. I have absolutely no idea what kind of wood it was either, so if you were curious, I can't help you.

Also, keep in mind if you're making your own, this is sized for my tub and my preference. Get your own measurements. Mine most likely won't work for you. 

Obviously I had to start by sanding the ever loving hell out of it, I have no idea how long this board had been in the garage, it was a bit rough and very dirty. Sanding solved all of that. It was at this point that I realized that this board was actually slightly warped as well, but this was more of a just gentle arch across the length of it. Probably wouldn't cause any major issues, and hell, if I had the arch go upwards on the top side then the warm water below the board plus the things I will regularly set on it could counteract that arch after a little time. I wasn't worried.

So, the first construction thing I wanted to do was add bumpers on the bottom. It's important to add some strips of wood or something to the bottom parallel to and right up against the edges of the tub to keep the board from turning sideways and falling in the tub. Lucky for me, I had kept the scraps I had cut from the middle of the boards I used to make the boats for Battleshots. And I even had the pieces that had the failed router cuts that probably wouldn't be useful for anything else, but this was a great use. And the 8" pieces from the 4 space boats were just the perfect length. It was so perfect.

I feel like I'm saying perfect a lot. Am I saying perfect a lot?

So I took my board and laid it across the tub. I then grabbed my little piece of bumper wood, held it up to the bottom of the board and pushed it up so it was against the tub edge, and then marked the edge of the bumper I could reach. I did this on both sides. When I flipped the board over I could line the bumpers up with the line I drew and outline the whole bumper piece to mark exactly where I wanted it to go. I just measured to center it vertically. 

I also used this opportunity to mark where the outer edge of the tub hit the underside of the board so I could mark the place I would cut the hole for my towel holder.

I realized I needed to cut the towel hole before gluing the bumpers, they'd probably get in the way. I actually used a nearby paint stirrer to mark the hole I wanted to cut, based on available space that was actually a perfect width. I drilled holes in the corners and used my jigsaw to cut the rectangle out. It was rough and a little messy, and I got way more tear out than I thought I would, but after sanding it wasn't too bad. I did have a few torn out holes I patched with wood filler. 

Once that was done and sanded, I just glued and clamped the bumpers in place. Maybe I should have screwed them in? Plenty of other tutorials did, but I just didn't really want to. And really, they're not going to take a lot of abuse, it's just for safety. Glue will be fine I'm sure. And if I'm wrong, I suppose I'll screw them back on when they fall off.

And this is what I had at this point. Obviously the bumpers area not evenly placed, the far edge of my tub is pretty narrow, and the board hangs off the close edge.

There's a close up of a bumper and the towel holder. Or the handle, as it came to be known after this point. I find it hilarious that my bumpers just have a random routered channel, there's literally no reason for it in this project, it's just the condition my scrap wood. And of course I wanted to glue the flat side down, more surface area for glue security.

The handle is a little curvy, but you know what, I don't care. It's good enough. It's function will have it mostly covered in a towel when in use anyways. You can see my wood filler patches too. I knew they wouldn't stain with the wood, but I'd deal with that later.

Next up was the railings around the edge and the wine glass space. I basically just lined up the dowels on the board and cut them to length. I got the measurements for the wine glass space by straight up placing my biggest stemless wineglass on the board and marking the lengths. I figured a stemless glass will have a wider bottom than a stemmed glass, so that would make sure any of my glasses would fit. I did test fit a stemmed glass as well. After that it was just glue and clamp.

Definitely had to clamp, the dowels were straight and this step made it pretty clear my board definitely wasn't.

This actually took a few days to do, the curved board meant both the long edge dowels needed to be clamped very thoroughly and I only have 5 clamps. That picture is after the clamped long edge sat overnight and I moved two clamps to glue the end piece. Those didn't need as much attention since that's not where the curve is. If you look you can see the slight arch on the close edge. You can also see that it's not really that bad.

When everything was glued down, we had this:

I also marked where I was going to be drilling holes for the knobs and the phone mount. 

While I was gluing these dowels down, I needed something else to work on. I mentioned that I did pick up a stencil for the design I planned to do, I found this at Walmart:

That stencil on top was exactly what I wanted. However, I wanted the image to be slightly cut off on the bottom, and since I would be attaching the railing around the edge before staining, it would not be possible to just hang the stencil off the edge of the board, it would need to be cut. Now, here's the thing. I love that stencil. I do not want to cut it and make it unusable for anything else. So obviously my solution was to make a copy of it. That's not unnecessarily tedious, I don't know what you're talking about.

So I traced the stencil onto some posterboard and spent an evening cutting it out with an xacto knife.

I think it turned out pretty good.

So what if my finger was sore and bruised for two days after? It's fine. It's fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

Art is pain.

I thought about returning the stencil set after making my copy to try and fix some of my no spending violations, you know, kinda pirate the stencil. But honestly, I really like those stencils. I'm keeping them.

After this, there was another round of sanding to get the railings perfectly flush with the board edge and to round off some sharp corners, particularly on the towel holder, and we were ready to stain. 

I had like a quarter of a can of the Golden Oak stain from Battleshots and a teensy bit of Early American stain from the record racks I made for Stu for his birthday, so I got crazy and just mixed them together. I wanted a darker wood color than I had, so I figured that would help, and I'd just do a lot of coats. 

I believe this was about three coats. Obviously the filler isn't taking the stain but I expected that. And the wood took the stain in kind of an odd leopard print kind of way, but I'm not mad. I wonder what would have happened if I'd used a prestain conditioner? I should try that someday.

There were a few places where wood glue had gotten on the surface and blocked the stain, so I had to sand and restain in a few small places, but it wasn't a big deal. 

And this is where it ended up. I think this was five or six coats? I honestly can't remember if I did a sixth or not. It's not the most even stain job in the world, but my experience with Battleshots is that it seems to even off over time. I let it sit for a few days after this picture was taken and it did help. 

As you can see in this, I also had drilled holes for the knobs and the phone mount. 

For the knobs it was as easy as just marking the center and drilling, but I decided I wanted to countersink the bottom so the screw wasn't sticking out. Unfortunately I do not have countersink drill bits. So I just drilled the pilot hole and then used a larger drill bit to drill a shallow hole around it. I slipped and drilled it too deep on one side and had to sorta fill it with wood filler and redo it, but it worked out fine. 

Also, like, the day after I did this Amazon had a nice set of countersink drill bits go on lightning deal so I bought them. I didn't use them for this so it doesn't count! I just wanted to have them, counter sunk screws look nice. 

The phone mount hole brought up some interesting issues. I actually put the phone in the mount and put the tray over the tub and sat down like I would if I was taking a bath to get the correct positioning for the mount. And then I discovered I was slightly wrong about the angle I wanted the phone at. The straight on angle of the mount was actually a little too far downwards, I did want it to tilt up. But like, juuuuuuuuuuust slightly. I played with trying to make a little wooden wedge under the front of the mount, I tried cutting wood chunks, which were way too steep, it literally needed just millimeters. I then tried sanding a piece of a paint stir stick to a point which was closer but when I screwed the mount down over it, it just lifted up the whole thing instead of tilting and it was all just a pain. In the end I broke my no spending rule again to get a swivel ball attachment for a tripod that the phone mount screwed directly into and would allow me to tilt it however I liked. If I was going to break my no spending rule for any part of this, I suppose the phone mount is the place to do it, I do want that to be secure and nice. 

Once I had that I was able to position and drill the hole. I didn't bother to countersink this one, it wasn't going to be on the edge of the tub. Plus I could see a situation where I don't want to use my phone in the tub, maybe I do want to read a book, and in that case I would want to remove the phone mount to make space for the book on the tray. Maybe I should come up with some kind of interchangeable book prop for that situation?

Next, after letting the stain sit for a few days, I needed to paint the mandala. I cut like maybe two inches off the bottom of my stencil copy, taped it down, and did the thing with the sponging and the stenciling and uhhhhhhhhg. I believe I made this very clear when I was working on Battleshots that I. Hate. Stenciling. I didn't have any super terrible paint bleeds, but I still spent an entire evening with a small paintbrush cleaning up the edges and making it look nice. 

I'd just like to point out you can see that the stain is much more even in this picture than it was in the previous one. Even if it still a little leopardy. I like my leopard print stain job, it makes it unique. So there.

I think it turned out okay, despite the challenges of stenciling. I also took a moment to try to paint over the wood filler parts with some brown paint to disguise it a little. It worked okay. Better than the grey filler anyways.

For the topcoat I still had a little less than half a can of satin finish polycrylic, so I just gave it two coats, top and bottom, it has just a bit of a sheen but not too much. 

Last was just attaching the hardware. I had to trim down a screw to be the right length for the phone mount, but the hacksaw made quick work of that. The screws I'd found for the knobs were honestly the perfect length and didn't need any trimming at all. I attached the hardware and added some foam pads to the bottom to protect my tub- they were just foam grippy pads I'd bought to keep my loveseat from sliding on my hardwood floor, that didn't actually work, haha. But they're self adhesive and perfect to keep my tray from scratching my tub. 

I'm really really pleased with it. I got the exact look I wanted, with the functionality I wanted. I think it's beautiful and I love it. It wasn't too hard to make either. It took me a while, but that was just because I didn't have a deadline so I just worked on it when I felt like it. No stress, no time crunch. Once I actually use it in a bath I'll stage myself a really pretty bath shot with it actually in use so it looks prettier. But all in all I'm proud of it. And I spent less than $20 on it, which, let's be real, knowing me and my usual unexpected expenses on projects, less than $20 might as well be nothing!