I live in an odd house that is slowly becoming less odd. It was originally a small residence, then it was a slightly larger residence, then it was a business, and now it is reverting back towards a residence (or possibly compound). Needless to say it still has some quirks.

One of the areas I’ve been slowly addressing is the pantry / laundry room. It originally had a place for a washing machine, but the dryer was in a shop space about 50 yards away. I have moved some things around for the pantry to include a dryer with the washer, but there has always been a large gap behind the appliances (shown to the right).

I wanted to fill in the gap for quite some time, but I didn’t have a solution I liked. Initially, I planned just to mount a shelf to the wall to at least provide some storage. I planned to build an enclosure under the shelf since there would be a large open space, but I was worried about access to plumbing and electrical connections.

My basic design requirements were:

• Easily access (to plumbing and electrical connections)
• Sturdy (able to support a load)
• Inexpensive

I was going to use hinges and complicated fasteners for access, but I thought about it some more and found a simple solution. I am posting it because someone with a similar issue might find it useful. It involves a French (or preferably Freedom) Cleat.

A French Cleat is basically a mounting system in which a matching pair of 45 degree pieces of molding are used to hang objects on a wall, such as cabinets or televisions. They can easily be made by ripping a 1×4 in its long direction with a table saw set at 45 degrees and mounting one piece to the wall and the other to the item to be hung. They can hold quite a bit of weight and the 45 degree ramp holds the object firmly against the wall. A google search will provide numerous examples. In the past, I have found French (Freedom) Cleats to be an excellent, simple, inexpensive, quick way to mount flat screen televisions.

The gap between the appliances and the wall behind them is shown above. It is hard to tell from this view, but the gap is about a foot wide. The picture also shows the half of the cleat that is attached to the wall behind the washer/dryer.

The picture to the left shows the underside of the shelf/enclosure. The back of the shelf has the portion of the cleat that mates to the cleat on the wall. The lower portion of the front of the shelf/enclosure has foam weather stripping to minimize the gap between to the washer/dryer and reduce wear as the washer/dryer vibrates during operation.

The installed shelf/enclosure is shown to the right.

There are several features to this solution:

• There is virtually no gap between the shelf/enclosure and washer/dryer
• No fasteners are used for attachment, so the shelf/enclosure can be removed and replaced in a matter of seconds
• The French (Freedom) Cleat can hold a significant amount of weight
• A nice feature of the Cleat is that adding weight to the shelf has a tendency to suck it towards the wall rather then bending it away from the wall like a typical shelf might.

I hope you find this helpful. Let me know if you have any questions or use a French Cleat for anything interesting.