Kid Friendly Book Storage

My good friend and our local children's librarian came to me with this piece that belonged to her father.  It had originally been used as a truck box in the back of a truck bed to hold tools.  I am so glad she thought of me when she saw it and gave me first dibbs!  It is sooo cool and the possibilities are endless!  She told me she saw something similar to it once at a library convention hanging on the wall with books inside, I loved the idea but waited a week or two before I made any decisions on it but I kept coming back to the book storage idea and so I decided to go for it.

 Oh yeah....my kids are LOVING this and so am I!  I am reworking a part of the basement for a more kid friendly space and this is included on the wall along with a bench seat below for reading (and reaching) the books placed in the various cubbies.  Below the seat are baskets full of more books because well, I yard sale alot and there tends to always be childrens books for sale and it seems I have a hard time passing them up :)  As you can see I ended up painting it black and handpainted the word "read" in a type kind of font.

I am loving how the room is shaping up but it's not quite finished yet!  The seat cushion is still a work in progress and I am on the hunt for a fun, bright colored, kid friendly area rug as well.  When those two things come together I will be more than happy to share the room reveal :)  Oh and a great big thanks to you Valerie!!!

Free Dresser Turned Media Cabinet

I was lucky enough to get this old dresser FREE a couple of weeks ago.  The woman who gave it to me bought it to fix up and never got around to it...boy do I know that feeling!  Anyhow, I was more than willing to take it off of her hands since I needed something bigger to put our flat screen on downstairs.  Even though it was missing a drawer, some hardware, and needed some major TLC, I saw it as having great potential.  Here's what I did...

 I demoed much of the inside, making it possible for a cabinet below for blanket storage...it seems our basement is always so cold no matter what season it is!  Then I cut and measured a board for the top to fit nicely for the electronic storage. If you look closely you'll see that the shelf needs some more painting but at 2 a.m. this morning I quit there :) Then I added old cabinet doors I cut down and pieced to fit. as well as hardware.  I also painted the inside a soft muddied blue.  I plan on adding some handpainting here but can't decide what I want to do just yet...it feels like such a big commitment, any suggestions are welcome! 

So as you can see I am not quite finished yet but getting closer!  A big thanks to Tanya for giving me this dresser, someday I'll show you all my before and afters of my basement makeover, it's been a slow transformation coming but I am almost there!