Make Your Own Suspended Ceiling Tray

Build a suspended tray out of plywood.

Trays suspended from the ceiling are useful for storage, and can hold anything from plants and holiday decorations to video projectors. By making your own suspended tray, you can customize it to whatever purpose you need. This tray is fairly simple to make using materials from your local hardware store. Sheets of plywood are typically sold as large as 4 feet by 8 feet, allowing you to create a very large tray if you want.

Instructions

1. Cut a piece of 1/2-inch plywood in the size that you want for your tray, using a saw.

2. Cut four pieces of 2-inch by 2-inch board. Two should match the length of the plywood, and the other two should be 3 inches shorter than the width.

3. Glue the boards to the surface of the plywood with wood glue, forming a lip at the perimeter that will prevent objects from falling. Clamp the wood together as the glue dries.

4. Drill a 5/8-inch hole through the plywood in each corner, positioned three inches in from the edges.

5. Sand the plywood surface with 120-grit sandpaper, then paint or stain it as desired. You can also leave the natural wood color if preferred.

6. Screw a nut onto a 1-inch threaded eye bolt all the way to the top. Repeat this step with three more eye bolts.

7. Thread an eye bolt through each hole. Screw another nut in place on each bolt, locking them in place in the corners of the tray.

8. Use a stud finder to locate the rafters in your ceiling. Mark their locations with a pencil.

9. Drill four 1/8-inch pilot holes into the rafters, in a pattern as close as possible to the positions of the eye bolts on the tray.

10. Screw 1-inch eye screws into the pilot holes, anchoring them in the rafters.