Forget A Junk Drawer And Put A Husky Tool Chest In Your Entryway Instead
A junk drawer is an improvement over your ordinary entryway drop zone; at least the junk is in a drawer, after all. By their very nature, both junk drawers and entryways tend to collect a seemingly random selection of items that don't have better places to land. TikTok video and media pro Kyle Schmidt (@kylemasonschmidt) solved this problem by giving "all the things that don't really have a place" an unlikely home: a Husky rolling workbench. Yes, right there inside his home. In fact, Schmidt says of the workbench in his 1,200-square-foot Philadelphia apartment, "I LOVE IT."
Mason outfitted the nine drawers of the $400 workbench from Home Depot — essentially a black mobile tool cart with a wood top — with plastic organizer trays. This increased its organizational power by an order of magnitude because it means the endless stream of miscellaneous items can now be categorized and sub-categorized. It also has a built-in power strip and two USB ports for charging devices ... perfect for an entryway. But a rolling workbench inside your home?
Using rolling workbenches inside the home
There are plenty of reasons people might not want a giant tool cart in their foyers. People who use the word "foyer," in particular, might resist such a thing. The wood top does warm up the industrial look, as Schmidt observes, but it's still a glossy metal thing with chromed handles. To say nothing of the logo, which is rather more prominent than you'd normally see on what amounts to a dresser. (There is a "blacked out" version that's gloss black with black trim but, as Schmidt says, it's inexplicably more expensive than the black-and-chrome one ... currently $648 versus $398.)
For others, though, this isn't a particularly whacky idea at all. In fact, it might constitute something of a trend. Another TikTok video pro, @connorrrnewell, says his Husky workbench is his favorite home office furnishing, and turning your Home Depot workbench into a kitchen island has been a thing for a while. Duramax offers a line of rolling workbenches specifically designed to work within the home, but they're comparatively expensive: A 48-inch Duramax workbench is currently $711 at Home Depot. The use of wood drawer and cabinet door fronts and standard pulls makes the workbenches more interior-friendly, though the vintage industrial vibe with riveted corner bracing might not suit everyone's tastes. There are also consumer-focused rolling workbenches made by companies like Gladiator and Seville, but these are more industrial-looking than the wood-topped Husky models. Sometimes it's just better to go with industrial than faux-industrial.
This opens up a world of storage and organization possibilities
When it comes to this sort of thing, you're probably somewhere in the middle between the traditionalist and TikTokker @lauralandry7, who used Husky workbenches as lower cabinets for her entire kitchen. So how would you go about making such an obviously useful piece of kit (soft-close drawers, two-foot depth, everything lockable with a single key, etc.) work in your home? The most common method seems to be disguise, along the lines of hiding your stove's stainless steel range hood, which has been all the rage in recent years.
It's possible to soften the garage vibe of the Husky workbenches by de-badging them, repainting, painting the drawer fronts a different color, or even applying a wood veneer to doors and drawer fronts. The handles on some models are removable, so you could even replace them with wood, or give them a new finish with a simple spray-painting. You might even be able to create a façade using thin plywood underlayment like Lauan RevolutionPly, or SurePly, though it might prove difficult to easily conceal the plywood edges when doors and drawers are open. But once the drawers are open, everyone is going to be so envious that a mere one-eighth inch of plywood edge showing won't even be noticed.