DIY Storage Unit with Tilt-Out Laundry Baskets | Master Bedroom Makeover | One Room Challenge | House by the Bay Design

DIY Bedroom Storage Unit with Tilt-Out Laundry Baskets

Friends, I am so glad that week four of this One Room Challenge is over! This week I’ve been tackling one of my biggest build projects ever – my new bedroom storage unit! Let’s have a quick refresher on my starting point okay? This is the before – three different width bookcases from Ikea, crammed with books, yoga mats, empty shoeboxes and…a plastic crown…(everyone has one of those right??)

Master Bedroom Bookcase Before | One Room Challenge | House by the Bay Design

These bookcases always look really messy, so my goal was to create a storage unit that would have shelves for books, cabinets (with doors) that could hide not-so-attractive stuff and an integrated place for our laundry basket.

I partnered with Kreg tools to create the plan for this build and the full tutorial is available free on their Build Something website! To build the unit I used 3/4″ Purebond aspen plywood for everything except for the top of the open shelves and the countertop. I used my Kreg pocket hole jig, shelf pin jig and a new toy I bought myself, the Kreg Accu-Cut Circular Saw Guide Track System.

Kreg Accu-Cut | DIY Bedroom Storage Unit | One Room Challenge Bedroom Makeover | House by the Bay Design

I saw Kreg demo the Accu-Cut at the Haven Conference in July and it’s been a great addition to our garage workshop. While Chris and I will occasionally borrow a neighbour’s table saw for projects, it’s limited to a 10″ wide cut. I like the Accu-Cut because I can easily cut down plywood and keep my cuts straight (WAY straighter than when I try to freehand it).

I’m so happy with how the finished product turned out. The cabinets give us the perfect amount of hidden storage while the open shelves are a nice way to display books and small decorative items. 

DIY Storage Unit with Tilt-Out Laundry Baskets | Master Bedroom Makeover | One Room Challenge | House by the Bay Design

I love that the unit is perfectly sized for our room and the open shelves are all the same width. The grey/blue colour is also nice and bright against our teal walls. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to keep the wood counter natural or stain it – what do you think?

DIY Storage Unit with Tilt-Out Laundry Baskets | Master Bedroom Makeover | One Room Challenge | House by the Bay Design

The two cabinets on the right hand side are both tilt-out units that hold tall skinny laundry baskets. I still need to add some ribbon or chain to prevent them from falling open.

DIY Storage Unit with Tilt-Out Laundry Baskets | Master Bedroom Makeover | One Room Challenge | House by the Bay Design

While I will be donating some of my books (university psychology textbook anyone?) I will definitely need more shelves – I’ll probably be cutting and painting at least three more to finish the unit completely.

DIY Storage Unit with Tilt-Out Laundry Baskets | Master Bedroom Makeover | One Room Challenge | House by the Bay Design

This unit is such a huge improvement over our old bookcases I’m still a little stunned when I walk into our room and see it. The room seems more polished and somehow more…grown up.

If you’re looking to build something similar please check out my storage unit plan on the Kreg Build Something website. I’d also love to see photos if you end up building from this plan!!

DIY Storage Unit with Tilt-Out Laundry Baskets | Master Bedroom Makeover | One Room Challenge | House by the Bay Design

So now on to my next (thankfully smaller) One Room Challenge project – our bedside tables! It turns out I have a bit of extra time too as we have been given a one week extension on our makeovers (seven weeks now instead of six). That takes a bit of the pressure off and has me thinking about one more project I might have time to squeeze in…we’ll see how it goes ๐Ÿ˜‰

Thanks for visiting and following along with my progress – make sure to check out Calling it Home and all the other projects by this years guest participants!

 

13 thoughts on “DIY Bedroom Storage Unit with Tilt-Out Laundry Baskets”

  1. It looks great, Casey! I love the pull out laundry baskets! So cool! The wood top looks really pretty. I like the warmth that it adds. ๐Ÿ™‚

  2. I love your storage unit, but I am curious. With your skills, why did you not just add doors to the bottom of the bookcases you already had, and customized those the way you wished with the laundry baskets, etc? Was it just easier to start from scratch? I don’t know, as I don’t have any skills in the building realm, I can barely handle a hammer and power tools scare me to death!

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