Introducing: Cock Castle
In an effort to kick my ass into a gear of some kind, I decided to make a fort for my dicks/ erotic art pieces and other goodies.
Initially, I was storing these things on a 3x4 Kallax from Ikea. It worked well enough, but, there were a handful of things I didn't like about the original set up: It was hard to light well; it made the toys look cramped; I couldn't adjust the shelves to accommodate the larger toys; it wasn't going to hold everything after all of my June and July purchases came in; Whoarder problems (Hey Que).
I suppose I could just throw them in Rubbermaid bins along with any argument I can make about appreciating the artistry of the items. That would be the most cost saving approach to all of this and my recommendation for anyone looking to store toys, rather than display them.
I approached this project without much of a plan, besides *^~^*ShElVeS fOr My DiCkS*^~^* I'm pretty sure this lack of a plan is apparent in how I explain my process. I regret not taking more process photos.
Things I needed to consider:
My cat loves silicone more than I do and will legitimately ruin it with his dumb, stabby little face. The display needed to be BaxProof.
The ceiling in my office is lower than most due to a bulkhead. This limits the height of the shelves.
I wanted to keep the cost reasonable and approachable.
I wanted a design that would be easy to replicate so it would be easy to add another shelf if need be
So, I decided to wrap some steel shelves in canvas and make a little fort.
Tools:
Sewing machine
Scissors
Grommet Pliers
Craft knife
Lighter
Hammer
Floor space
Supplies:
Steel Storage Shelves from the AmazonBasics store. These come in a variety of sizes and a couple different finishes. They are easy to put together and adjust. Similar style shelves are sold at walmart, home depot, lowes, costco, etc. You can also find them second hand fairly often and they are easy to clean up. Some sets even come with wheels which make it easy to move things around, if that is a concern.
Canvas Drop Cloth. Again, these come in a variety of sizes and weights. A cotton drop cloth can be dyed or painted to suit particular aesthetics, or keep it raw for that little mermaid sail dress look that I went with.
Foam Board. I used (12) 18 x 24 inch sheets for my set up.
Paracord
Zip Ties
Electrical tape
Grommets. I got this set with the pliers. It requires a good deal of hand strength and the finish isn't super clean, but it gets the job done.
LED lights. I wanted my set up bright, so I might have a went a bit overboard with the lights, but I used THESE ONES and they fit the wider shelves perfectly. They get a little warm if they are on for a long time, but they are fine to touch, so, I don't think its an issue.
Heavy Duty Clear Vinyl table cloth.
Thread. I just used 40 wt cotton thread.
Some notes on tools and supplies: The sewing machine and thread are very optional; A glue gun would work as well. A person could replace the paracord with zip ties and forgo the whole laced cord look entirely. If you want to dye the drop cloth, do that before this process; I cannot help you with that part. Please be careful with knives.
Process
1. Build your shelf. It should have instructions in the box. I find a hammer helps if you need to adjust a shelf and its too tight to move. That's the only use for the hammer; It's not very important. I recommend figuring out your shelf height at this point and finalize where you will want them now.
A Process Note: Now would be a good time to figure out how you want to have your lights set up, and install them on the shelf. I didn't do that. I put the lights on second, and I also repeated a lot of steps unnecessarily, because I was making things up as I went.
Tips for setting up lights: The lights I selected can be chained together, or coupled together. They come with instructions in the box. They do not dim or change colors. I selected a warm white tone. I used black electrical tape to cover the electrical cords and attach them to the shelf unit support poles. I used zip ties to hold the lights in place on the underside of the shelf. Otherwise, they were very easy and straight forward to set up.
2. Lay out your drop cloth on the floor. Try to take out large wrinkles.
3. Lay the shelf down on the drop cloth. This is the first step in wrapping it, and we will be wrapping the shelf a bit like a carpet around a dead body. You want to place the shelf on its side, with it's bottom feet and one side along finished edges, in the corner of the cloth.
4. This is the point when I placed the first run of grommets. I eyeballed all of the grommet placement, so there are no measurements, but, how I placed them (please refer to the instructions on your grommet set for directions on how your set works; you might need a hammer!):
I put a grommet roughly 2 inches from the bottom corner of the canvas a long the finished cloth edge, then I put another grommet at the top of the shelving unit. Both of these were an inch from the finished edge of the cloth.
Another grommet is placed about an inch under that top grommet, 1 inch from the finished edge.
At that point, I started eyeballing the halfway point between the grommets at the very bottom of the shelving unit and the second grommet from the top. A grommet goes in the middle of that distance, 1 inch from the finished edge.
Then, a grommet goes in the middle of the distance from the bottom grommet to the middle grommet.
And then, between the middle grommet and the upper grommets.
I just kept putting grommets at halfway points until I thought I had enough. They are probably not exactly a perfect distance apart, but it doesn't really matter to much to be honest. You could put grommets every inch if you like. Or even just cut holes in the canvas and skip the grommets entirely.
5. At this point, I eyeballed out a length of paracord that was roughly three times the height of the shelf. Cut it off, knotted it and carefully melted the ends so it can't fray.
6. I laced the prepared side of the canvas to the front support post of the shelf unit with the paracord. I started at the top of the shelf unit, taking time to ensure the paracord was wrapped around the top shelf to hold up the canvas. I did a simple crisscross around the pole, putting the paracord through the grommets every second crisscross for a consistent look. When you reach a shelf, try to work the paracord around it the best way possible. You might have to undo the cord later, no need to make it perfect right now. Or ever, honestly.
7. Tie the paracord under the bottom shelf. I know you know some good knots. It's important that the paracord is over the top of the top shelf and under the bottom of the bottom shelf. These two points keep the canvas taunt and anchored in one place.
Alternatively, you could use zipties and skip the whole lacing thing entirely.
8. With the one side of the canvas secured to the shelving unit, it's time to roll. Simple, basic step, that I will now overcomplicate with words: flip the shelf on its back, making sure to pull the canvas tight across the back of the shelf, and flip again, so it is laying on its other side, and tighten the canvas again.
9. Take a moment to straighten out the canvas, ensuring the bottom edge of the canvas is even around the bottom of the shelves feet, and pulled taunt across the back and side.
10. Time to cut the canvas to size. I recommend cutting the canvas a bit long so you have extra to fold over and make a nice finished edge.
I used the front support pole of the shelf unit to guide my scissors and I took my time to keep the cut even. You can also mark where the support pole is on the canvas to guide the finished edge fold. I then finished the edges on my sewing machine (this is where you might have to untie all that excellent rope work; I sure did.). Then, I put the canvas back on the shelf unit, retying the one side and repeating the rolling process.
You can also just cut the canvas to size and not finish the edge; It just looks rougher. To finish the edge, you can sew it with a sewing machine, or hot glue it and fold over, OR use the grommets to secure the two layers together.
11. Grommet Time Two, Electric I hope you had fun the first time, cause we get to do it again Boogaloo. See Step 4, apply it to our new cut side of canvas.
12. Repeat Steps 5, 6, and 7 to secure the canvas to the shelving unit support pole.
13. Stand that shelfboi/gurl/nby up and admire your hard work. The top isn't done yet. It should look silly.
14. There should be excess canvas at the top of the shelf. I opted to sew mine into corners, but you can easily fold the fabric into a clean top and hot glue it.
To sew the corners (overcomplicated):
Have you ever wrapped a present? You know how you fold the corners of the paper, to make a nice corner? We are kind of going to fold the fabric like that to find the point on the top flappy fabric that aligns with the taunt side canvas that is held in place by all of your hard work. We are looking for a neat fold that supports the back of the canvas, while making a neat corner.
Pin those front points together. I drew marks on the fabric to match cause I'm a wild beast. There should be a flap of extra fabric that is triangular in shape.
In folding the fabric, we should have also determined the location of the back corner. We want to mark or pin that corner.
Pin your neat folded edge of canvas, making sure the top and sides of the canvas all look taunt and clean. This is important; we will be sewing/ hot gluing along that line.
Pin/ mark the other corner in the same matter, then remove the canvas off the shelf unit.
Sew/ glue those seams, bby.
Test fit the canvas on the shelf *before* you cut off the excess fabric. If the fit looks good, great! If not, that's okay, couture takes time.
Cut off the excess fabric. For extra points, flip the canvas inside out to hide the seams.
15. Lace the canvas on for, hopefully the last time. Sorry about that. I'm sure this process could be made a lot more efficient, but again, I was winging it..
A Process Note, Two: This is the point in my process when I put the lights on my shelves. Again, zip ties and electrical tape. You can even get both of these in multiple colors! You can also skip the tape entirely and use the paracord lacing/ zip ties to hold the cords out of sight.
16. Another great moment to appreciate how much work you have put in and how great it looks. The shelves are still bare but, they'll work!
17. Foam Board Time! This will depend on the size of your shelf, and is pretty straight forward. We want to cut the foam board to fit to the shelf. I found cutting the corners off at a 45 degree angle was an easy way to work around the support poles rather than cutting square corners.
Foam Board Notes: I have found most of the toys have left silicone oil stains on the foam board. This residue is normal due to how silicone is made/ it's chemical make up and not something I am very concerned about. I will be keeping an eye on this long term, but I think the foam board is a good, cost effective option to make the shelves a bit more stable for the toys; I found the bare shelves' rails were a bit too wide to support my toys without a lot of care in positioning.
So, technically, the shelf is done! You can put things on it, admire them under the lights, appreciate how great it all looks, start adding risers and make everything look cute, etc, etc, etc.... Great work! Not only did you put this all together, you decoded my horrible instructions to do it and that deserves a treat of some kind.
At this point in time, for myself, I am using a heavy duty clear vinyl tablecloth as a cover/ door to keep the cat and dust off the shelves and out of my "fort". I feel like the fort steps are super optional, so I just wanted to be clear, it gets kind of weird from here.
Optional Construction
18. I positioned my shelves in a U-shape and zip tied the corners together to hold the shelves together. It helps that I have them in a weird corner of my office that contains the whole thing and keeps the whole unit in a U-shape.
19. I used some spare 2x4 lumber to create some basic supports for the roof.
20. I used a spare 48 x 48 inch pegboard to create the roof.
21. I stretched the left over canvas out over the top of the pegboard to make it a bit more comfortable for the cat. I had a LOT of extra canvas, so this is optional.
22. I used the front 2x4 support to hold my heavy duty table cloth along the front top of the unit and I flip it up on top of the fort when I need to access the shelves, *AFTER* removing the cat from the room. I have slowly been training him to respect the plastic barrier, but, in the mean time, I hold the bottom of the table cloth down with a stool to make it much harder for him to sneak in.
23. Oops, we made a fort. I filled mine with dicks but you can really put anything in yours.
Closing Thoughts
Anyway, I'm really proud of it.
It's going to make filming much easier for me, as having a static video set with controlled lights makes it so much easier to just... film. I have found myself feeling really critical of my old film set designs, mostly because I really want to properly show these items off, because they are beautiful. Setting those less inspired spaces/ sets up would leave me pretty drained of energy for the process, cause I just wasn't entirely happy with it.
Don't get me started on the whole spinney mechanism thing and how much energy I have wasted in making it look presentable to me; It's been a needless battle.
But, I also really like that I can see my growth and progress in my review videos, so, to be clear, all of those other sets were also *fantastic*. Just not nearly as fantastic as this one Now I have to work on the real problem, which is me and my video skills. I might get off first. A couple times.
Oh, I suppose, also, as I read my instructions and think about my process, I realize that a video tutorial would likely be much better for most people. I will see what I can do to put something together eventually; maybe for Christmas. Please don't hold your breath, I have a lot of reviews and audios to catch up on first. I suppose now is a good time to mention, I named it Cock Castle.