Scrap-wood Paper Towel holder

We’ve mentioned it before when talking about our new wall mounted cutting board, or when we added the new spice rack.  We just don’t have a lot of space in our kitchen.

Having space on the counter for a nice paper towel holder just isn’t an option.  (Which is a shame since my Dad made me a nice one for when I rented a house in college.)

Bill & I got lucky on a wall-mounted holder at the ReStore for ten cents.  Yes, that’s right, $0.10 total cost.  It was like this one.

Can’t beat a ten cent fix, right?  WRONG.

Problem #1 – the construction was flimsy and the plastic parts on the ends that folded out and actually held the roll didn’t have enough tension, so if you pulled on the roll too quick to tear a piece off, the whole roll would come off the wall.

Problem #2 was that when the roll came off the wall, it fell into the sink, usually with a full bowl of water or something that would soak through the entire roll, wasting it completely.

The last time this happened, I acted fast and actually used one of those ‘cuts through anything! even cans!’ knives we got at a demo and sawed straight through at the half-mark to prevent the whole roll from getting soaked as it pulled the water from one end of the roll to the other.  It worked too, though bill later opened the wet side of the roll and let it dry.

Clearly we needed another solution.

Fortunately Bill has a small stock of scrap wood and decided to make a wall-mounted wooden version instead, with a dowel that would sit through the roll so it wouldn’t jump off the wall at us anymore.

 To create the channel that the dowel would set in, he cut two equal sized end caps that included matching cutouts in them.

Then he added these to either end of a similar but longer piece of wood, making the interior dimension a bit longer than your standard roll of paper towel.

To ensure the dowel wouldn’t pull through the channel too easy, Bill actually used the old wooden knobs we set aside when we hacked our Ikea Rast and secured them to the ends if the dowel.  Not only do the knobs keep the dowel in place, but they add a nice touch too when it’s all together on the wall.

To make it blend into the wall a bit better, Bill painted the body of the holder white.  The dowel was left natural as the whole thing was going to be mounted below our open shelf which is also a light colored natural wood.

Then it was just a matter of putting it on the wall where the old holder used to be.

Then after putting the dowel through the roll of towels, all he had to do was drop the dowel into the channels and it was all set.

NOW when I have wet hands and want to yank the roll to get JUST ONE PIECE to tear off, I can without worrying about the roll jumping at me looking for a drink in the sink.

Any little upgrades happening around your world these days?

~ Beth