DIY Nightstand - THE Bedside Storage Solution

You probably have several things on the table next to your bed: clock, tissues, phone, an iPad, a book, a glass of water and so on. The secret to a good night’s sleep is to create a calm and comfortable environment.

Your bedroom should have as few distractions as possible. That means you shouldn’t use your bed as an office or storage trunk. Sarah White, the Regional Marketing Director for Camden Development, advises keeping a wooden box in a drawer or underneath your nightstand. “Not only is it beautiful storage for your watches, rings and other accessories, but it makes a home for all the knickknacks that would otherwise clutter the top of your nightstand,” she says.

She also suggests adding an upholstered ottoman to the end of the bed to store larger items. “The flip-top design provides space for pillows, shoes, blankets or anything else you’d like to stow away, while the upholstered finish creates additional seating,” White explains.

After all, a bedroom can never have enough storage. Consider keeping your other necessary items out of sight with this easy DIY solution.

I love the challenge of taking something most people would toss in the trash and repurposing it into a pretty and useful item. This round table is the perfect example. It looks like it was a high school shop class project. A little crude, but perfect for storage with shelves on four sides. First I primed it, painted it “Retro Rose” (to coordinate with fabric I purchased) and then added wheels to make it easier to move around.

Besides primer, paint and fabric, the only other supplies I needed were VELCRO® Brand fasteners. I used VELCRO® Brand sticky back stripes and squares.

Since the top of this table was uneven, I cut and painted a piece of foam core board to fit, then attached it with VELCRO® Brand sticky squares. No glue and clamps necessary!

The circumference of the round table measured 56 inches. To make a gently gathered skirt, I cut a 92-inch-wide piece of fabric (1½ times the circumference, plus four inches for side hems and four inches for the overlap) by 29 inches long (22 inches overall length, plus four inches for the bottom hem and three inches for the top hem).

An interior designer trick is to add a contrasting fabric to the gathered top edge and the front opening. This is certainly optional, but it gives the skirt a bit of flair.

After hemming the bottom and gathering and hemming the top edge, I applied the VELCRO® Brand tape loop side to the skirt and the hook side to the edge of the table.

I attached the skirt around the table with the opening place to access one of the shelves by pressing the loop strip to the hook strip. Then I added another piece of the VELCRO® Brand hook tape to the right side of the skirt to open and close it.

Now I can hide all the extra items I might need near the bed, yet have easy access to everything.

Interior designer, Merri Cvetan  uses her craft skills to create useful upcycled decor projects and writes about them for The Home Depot.  She likes to use a mix if interesting fabrics, textures, paint and different types of VELCRO® Brand hook and loop fasteners to transform the unsightly into the beautiful.