January DIY Project: Homemade Cubbies

Along with my monthly Pinterest project, I decided to tackle one monthly project that involves some DIY. And boys oh boys, was I excited to get to this! I wasn't sure if it would work...and it is totally redneck, I'm sorry to say....but it came out *so*good*! Lets get to it, shall we?


You knows those Expedit shelves from Ikea that everyone and their neighbor's sister's barber's son is using these days? Well, I dig those things...but we don't have Ikea around here. Boo. That was my inspiration, however, for this project. So this is what I had in mind....

...even though my end result doesn't look a thing like that. But we'll get to that in a minute.

At the top of our stairs to the second story of our house we have this awkward little hall. It is made even more awkward by the slanted ceilings, which doesn't leave you much room to work with. So while we did have a fair amount of floor space to store extra blankets and sheets...

It is A) really hard to get at (because you have to bend in two) and B) really hard to keep neat. Clearly.

I believe it was all folded and neat at one time. Like when we first moved in. But then someone needed a blanket from the bottom or they lost a pillowcase or whathaveyou. Good thing that railing was there to hold it all up. Oh, and it has really bad lighting, too, in case you hadn't noticed! Basically it would be a good place for a murder scene, haha!

Well, this DISASTROUS area was what I wanted to tackle!

(Tell me you can't picture and Expedit shelving unit there. Can't you? Ah, that would be beautiful. But I digress.)

I pulled every.single.blanket. out of there and made a heap on the bedroom floor.

 Then I (envisioned that Expedit sitting there and then) pulled a bunch of boxes out of the attic. You say, you didn't! I say, oh yes I did!!

We had a whole bunch of Chick-fil-A boxes left over from when we moved, and they were all the same exact size (and quite sturdy...waffle fries must be heavy!) so I opened them up and reinforced the bottoms with...get ready for it....duck tape. Yes, I am ashamed to admit my redneckness, but a girls got to do what a girl without an Ikea can do! I didn't take pictures of all the duck tape gory details, but I just shuffled the boxes around until I had an arrangement I liked. I also used a larger box leftover from our sound system equipment on the far right. I knew I would need a bigger place for the extra king-sized comforters we have. Once I had them arranged in the best way possible, I whipped out my trusty roll again and taped them together to make them even more sturdy. Seriously, you'd be surprised how efficient this really is!

Then I spent a couple of hours, literally, folding everything. And the result?

Can you believe the difference? I just love it. I literally stand there just gazing at it. That is the great thing about organizing!

To the left in that picture above are some extra sheet sets. I folded them all nicely and then tucked the sheets inside the corresponding pillowcase. No more digging for them!

It is hard to tell, but the boxes were just the right width so there is room to slide in between them and the railing to get what you need.

So would purchasing a pre-made unit (we won't mention from where) have been better? Yeah, probably. But it most likely would have been difficult to find one that wasn't too high (because of that slanted ceiling) and wasn't so wide that you couldn't get between it and that rail. So a DIY option it was. Come spring, I am hoping to give it all a couple of coats of paint and at least cover up the duck tape, for pete's sake. And I even have visions of taking it all out and DIYing some open shelves instead. Someday, baby, someday.

Oh, and the total cost of this project:
Boxes: already had
Duct tape: never leaves my side already had
Blankets and sheets: all ours
Total cost: $0.00

Have you ever repurposed something unexpected in a fantastic way? What would you have done different with this space? Don't you just want to scroll up and gaze at the beauty again? Oh, just me?