Glass Storage Tutorial

Cheap, quick, easy! Portable too!

Materials: 3 7/16 inch wood dowel rods, one plastic basket, left over sheet of bubble wrap, and something to cut the dowel rods.

new basket of glass

I have seen a lot of different solutions to the glass storage problem. Many are larger than what I need and are permanently placed. I wanted something a little smaller and also portable. My studio is currently in our breezeway, so it is not very comfortable in the summer or the winter. I would like to move to somewhere a little more comfortable in the house, but until I can get a line into the house for fuel and some ventalation installed there, I am stuck where I am.

Originally, I was using wash buckets, but the glass kept falling over. I then cut up some cardboard tubes, and that worked mostly, but I could not use all of the space.

bucket of glass

Here is a look inside, to see the cut carboard tubes.

bucket of glass

I found this great plastic basket at my local big hardware store. Notice the great holes in the side? Those are very handy for holding wooden dowel rods!

Cut the dowel rods to fit the basket with about 2 inches extra - this way, about an inch of dowel rod will stick out of the side of the basket. I used 2 rods to fit the length of the basket and 3 for the width. This gives 12 nice sized slots. Notice that my basket had just the right number of holes to make the slots square.

materials for storage

Here is the tab on the bottom of the basket.

tag on basket

First, I placed a sheet of bubble wrap on the bottom of the basket. I did this to help hold the glass in place so that it would not slip around and fall over. Next, I put the 3 shorter dowel rods into the basket by threading then through the holes in the basket.

dowels in basket

Then I put the 2 longer dowel rods into the basket by threading then through the holes on a different level than the other dowel rods.

dowels in basket

Done! This took about 5 minutes to assemble, including cutting the rods. Here is the basket again, partially filled with my glass. I think that I will use bulldog clips to hold the dowels in place (the rods slip around a little more than I would like.)

bucket of glass

Improvements

I think that I will use bulldog clips to hold the dowels in place (the rods slip around a little more than I would like.)

I am also considering adding another layer of dowel rods to help keep the glass from falling over.