Book Storage

Sometimes it takes me a long time to get something "finished." The reading nook in Little Bug's room has pretty much been finished for months now except that I wanted a good way to store her books. I have been using baskets to store them, but as she has accumulated more books over the years, they no longer fit in just one basket, not to mention they got way too heavy and the baskets ended up looking like this:

Little girls are surprisingly hard on things, and baskets weren't cutting it, so I decided to try something new. I had seen some cool tutorials about using rope wrapped around containers to give it a basket or Pottery Barn look, so I went shopping. 

I found this large Sterlite container at a thrift store for $2. It didn't have a lid, but I didn't need one, so I bought it anyway. I bought a 50ft roll of sisal rope at Lowes for $9, and I was set to go. The problem here, that one roll of rope was not going to be enough, and buying another roll didn't really equal out to be an inexpensive storage solution like I wanted it to be. This is about 6 rows wrapped around the container and I only had 1/3 or so of the roll left. It would have probably taken me at least 3 rolls to cover the whole thing. 

So, I moved on to my next idea. I remembered seeing an idea here for a fabric covered plastic storage bin. I already had some canvas on hand from another project, so I set to work. I used Modge Podge to stick it to the sides of the container, and left enough of an overhang to fold over to the bottom. It was fairly easy and took about 30 minutes. I also used some cute fabric that I had on hand to create a faux liner for the bin. It is durable, looks cute under the nook bench, and holds a lot of books.

The other thing that I have debated about doing in the nook for a long time was adding shelves for books along the sides. It is a pretty cozy space, so I knew that the shelves would have to be pretty low profile. Yesterday, I finally decided to just go for it, and I really like how they turned out. When I first made the reading nook, there were a couple of shelve that I removed to make room for the bench. The supports for those shelves were still there, so I just screwed a narrow piece of wood onto the bottom of the supports, and then added an even smaller piece of wood to create a lip. I painted them green to match her room, and they were ready to add books. 

I really like the way that they turned out. They are only about 4 inched wide, so they don't take up too much space. Since I was able to use scrap wood that we had laying around to make them, they were also free, and took about 2 hours to build, paint, and install. 

Bug likes her new shelves. She has already changed out the books several times, and likes that all of the rest of her books now fit into one basket. And now, except for maybe rearranging the upper shelves, I can say that I have officially finished the reading nook.

-Mandi