6 How to... Make a table storage compartment

Want your table to be close at hand but kept out of the way? Tony Brown shows you how

Heavy tables are more easily accessed from floor-level storage spaces, but mine was stowed away inside the wardrobe, above the fridge.

It was also rather awkwardly tucked behind a fixed, vertical part of the wall at the front right-hand side of the wardrobe, making it even more difficult to manoeuvre the table in and out of storage.

To resolve the problem, I planned to form a separate table compartment in the same place, but to remove this piece of board to create the narrow compartment door.

To make the new wardrobe/ table compartment partition, I first needed to source some matching board. After trying (without success) to find a piece that had the same wood finish, I decided that because it was inside the wardrobe, a 1220mm x 606mm piece of 5.5mm hardwood plywood, painted with satin oak stain varnish, would provide an acceptable match for the manufacturer’s melamine-finished board.

Hardwood plywood can be found at DIY chains in small sheets and has a much finer surface than conventional ply.

The board was carefully cut to size, then two 75mm-wide spacers were cut from the same material – one for the compartment ceiling and another for the floor.

Next, an off-cut of 50mm x 25mm oak was sawn down to 12mm x 12mm to provide the front and rear glued-on trim, and the top and bottom strips to hold the large sheet against the top and bottom spacers.

I have a router table, so I was able to make a shallow channel section of this oak to glue on to the vertical front edge, for a neat appearance.

The partition was tried in place regularly as work progressed, to ensure a good fit, and then screwed in place using stainless steel screws.

The narrow compartment door was attached with new hinges to the front edge of the partition and kept shut using a push-to-open catch, which is secure and needs no handles.

To complete the project, the wardrobe rail was shortened and its fixing bracket moved to the side of the partition.

My daughter’s rather mature caravan developed intermittent problems with the aerial, and she found she could only watch TV while jiggling the aerial amplifier from side to side.

My first thought was the coaxial 12V power lead plug, which can cause problems in small appliances, particularly after rough handling and with constant connection and removal. That did not apply to this aerial amplifier, which had been unmoved for years.

Using my meter (although a 12V bulb on a short wire would also have been acceptable), I established that no amount of bending the power lead would stop current flowing.

My attention moved to the power socket on the amplifier, but this seemed fine as well, so plugging in only the power lead would light the red LED warning light without fail.

I reconnected the two aerial leads, one to the antenna on the roof, the other to the TV socket, and all seemed well.

Had I unintentionally cured the problem? All that was needed was to secure the amplifier to the wall, but as soon as it hit the wall, out went the red light.

How frustrating! To my surprise, it was wiggling one of the TV aerial cables that extinguished the light.

Dismantling the aerial plug on the malfunctioning lead revealed that the manufacturer had removed a little too much of the internal insulation between the central aerial wire and the earth braid.

This allowed one earth strand to short-circuit intermittently to the central aerial lead.

Having a little spare cable length allowed me to cut off the plug and start again, fitting plug to aerial lead. Problem solved!

Following the pictures below should help you to avoid similar difficulties in future.