Dirt Cheap, Lightning Fast Paint Tier

If you are like me, your workstation has become the equivalent of paint bottle Lollapalooza. Oh sure, at first they are all in nice regiments towards the back of your desk, but eventually, you will grab the Red Gore before you put back the Tin Bitz, and suddenly, the bottles are mingling in small groups on every available flat surface.

So I started looking around for solutions. Games Workshop used to make one, and it's still available at local retailers, but 40 bucks just to organize my paints didn't make sense. Miniature Scenery has a whole modular set. But both of these is overkill for what I needed both in terms of features and price.

Then last night, I was about to start cleaning up my office and I found myself with a piece of foamcore and a T-square in my hand. My idea was to quickly sketch out and cut out a prototype for what I wanted to I could get a rough 3D representation of what I wanted to make out of wood. Well, literally took 3 minutes to cut out with an Xacto, and with a tiny bit of packing tape, it was strong enough for my purposes. Best of all, the foamcore was from a dollar store. Check it out (click on the pics to enlarge):

Not shabby, huh? In case you need a more explicit guideline, here's my stupid-simple schematic (again, click for a larger view):

So if you cut carefully, 11 swipes with the Xacto makes the 4 support pieces. I also realize that I left out one of the long pieces in the diagram, but  you get the idea. You need a support piece in the "top-back" and the "bottom-front". Tape. glue, whatever. It's fast, relatively level, and strong. I wouldn't make it any longer than 16" even with the extra supports...it is foamcore, after all.

Cheers.

UPDATE