The Tray Rack

Some folks out there are envious of our tray rack (and rightly so). Here is the back story on our splendorous tray and backpack storage center. The week before school started at my new job the assistant teacher in my classroom volunteered to help me set up the room. At some point she asked about tray storage and I told her that at my old job we had once had a tray rack built of PVC that lasted about five years before it feel apart (due to poor epoxy) and that it had worked out really well for us. She offered to have her husband make us one if I could find some plans for it.

I scoured the web (which I am quite good at) and could not find plans for a tray rack. I did, however, find some pool float racks sold commercially that were similar to the tray rack we had and an Instructables tutorial to make a tee-shirt drying rack, that with some changes to spacing would work as a tray rack. I sent all of this information along to the assistant teacher.

The next time she came in she took some measurements of the largest tray (including elbow blocks and other tray add-ons) and brought them back to her husband. Low and behold the next week she came in with the amazing tray rack/backpack shelf you see in the pictures. It is made of wood instead of PVC as he happened to have some extra lumber around which was cheaper than using PVC pipe. Yes the posts of the rack are decorative railings. Aren't they pretty? There is soft foam on the bottom to prevent the trays from being scratched as well.

Across the top of the rack we laid some old clear desk organizer pads we had in a box of old stuff. That little addition makes the tray rack perfect for holding all of the students backpacks during the day. Our tray rack/backpack center is awesome and is working out great.