Laundry Room Project: Part 2

I made some progress on the laundry room organization project.  I started with a few long scrap pieces of oak plywood and cut several 3.75 inch wide strips.  I then set my table saw to cut a 45 degree angle and ripped each strip down the middle.  That gave me several french cleats that measure 2 inches on the long side, and 1.25 inches on the short side.

I sanded each cleat and applied a single coat of polyurethane.  Since these are purely functional cleats that will spend their lives hiding in the laundry room, the single coat of finish is just to provide a bit of protection.  I'm not really concerned with how they look.  You can see some of the resulting cleats in the following image.

While cutting the clips I also found out that my table saw blade is starting to get dull.  The plywood should cut without much problem, but you can see a few burn marks in the wood where the blade struggled a bit.  If these were in a more visible area I would have taken the time to clean up the edges, but since my only real concern for these is function I'm happy enough with how they turned out.  Even though there are a few burn marks, the angles are all nice and crisp.

I made a few measurements and drilled three small pilot holes in each board.  This way the screws will all be in the same location.  Even if appearance isn't important, I at least want the screws to all line up.  I also drilled a countersink for each hole so that the screws all sit just below the surface.

Here is a shot of the laundry room before the cleats are installed.  It's not too bad, but a little organization should help clean up the storage.

The cleats start 12 inches from the floor, and the lower set are placed 35 inches from the left wall.  Rather than taking a lot of time measuring and leveling every cleat, I made a couple of spacers to speed things along.  I marked the location the bottom left corner of the lowest cleat, placed it on the wall and drove in the first screw.  I pivoted the cleat until it was level, then drove in the remaining two screws.  Once the bottom cleat was on the wall, I used the spacers to set the next cleat in line.  This guaranteed that each cleat was level to the one below.  You can see the process in the following image.

Once the first cleat was in, the process went rather quickly.  I gave each cleat a firm pull, and they held very well.  I only got the first 5 rows installed today (the bottom short rows).  I didn't have any scrap wood long enough for the 79-inch-long rows, so I'll have to piece each of those together with two strips.  The process to hang them isn't any different, but I need to make a few measurements before I start cutting.

I hope to get all the cleats up on the wall this weekend.  I'll spend the next week making the shelves.

(Laundry Room Project: Part 1)
(Laundry Room Project: Part 3)