DIY Storage Baskets

I have been in the nesting mode for the past few months and have been organizing my house like crazy! Baby no. 2 will be here soon and I desperately feel the need to get everything in order. So, one of the rooms on my list of "to do's" was my sons room. He has a ton of toys and now that I am using his closet as storage for the new baby clothes I needed to a way to store some of those toys; preferably out of sight. I thought the best way to do that would be to utilize the area under his bed. I was particular though, I wanted baskets that could roll and that weren't too expensive... it was nearly impossible to find.

 I happened to be at The Container Store and found some metal baskets on clearance and decided I would make my own rolling storage carts with them. They turned out pretty good I must say, so here's a simple tutorial in case you'd like to make your own!

I made three of them, but I probably could have fit four under his twin bed. 

These are the elfa drawers from the Container Store, on clearance for $8.00 a basket (normally $16.00)!

Next step was to get the wood and cut it to size to fit inside the basket (this will be used to easily mount the wheels). I bought a walnut veneer board at a local wood store for $23.00. I needed three rectangular pieces and the size of the board was just enough - as you see I had two scrap pieces left over after cutting.

After I cut the first piece I made sure that it fit well in the basket.

I liked the color of the wood as it was, but wanted it to be durable, so I put a couple coatings of clear polyurethane on them.

Once that was dry I could mount the wheels!

These wheels are from Home Depot and they are the 1-1/2" rubber wheel swivel plate casters. Since I was installing over the metal basket, I used two washers under each screw to help lift the plate. Note that once screwed in, the plate should be very tight to the board. My wood board was about 3/4" thick and I used 5/8" long screws.

To mount them, I put the basket with wood upside down over a bucket (covered with a rag so I didn't scratch it) - then just screw them in! 

With one in each corner you will need lots of washers and screws!

All finished! I think it would be cute to add leather handles or maybe a chalkboard tag to it, but for now these do the job and I'm happy with how they turned out, they're durable and so cute.