CURRENT FAVORITE KID BOOKS + DIY BOOK BIN

Baskets are my favorite way to store kids toys for one very simple reason. There is no real organization required when putting the toys away. I (or the kids on occasion) just toss everything in and call it a day. So when we needed a place to put all of the books that were accumulation in the boy’s room, I pulled out a trusty wire basket and pilled them up inside. In addition to being functional, the basket looked really cute full of books. But there was one problem. Pages and covers were starting to get bent and even ripped since being stored so haphazardly. It’s rare that I give a second thought to beat up or broken toys, but  books are different. They are such a sweet and important part childhood and ours definitely needed a better home. So I asked my handy husband to help make a fancy bin for them and loved how it turned out.

Sharing the DIY along with some of our current favorite books below…

DIY DIVIDED BOOK BIN

You’ll Need –

• 1 sheet of 4 x 8, 5/8 inch thick wood  (good quality and smooth)
• Table saw  or bring measurement to local hardware store
• 4 legs (found ours at Lowe’s)
• Tape measure
• Wood glue
• Brad nail gun
• Drill with drill bits
• Stain &/or paint
• Painters tape
• Paint brush

Cut Wood Dimensions – (for an 8 x 30 x 13 inch book bin)

• 1 bottom piece 13 x 30
• 2 side pieces 8 x 13
• 2 front / back pieces 8 x 31-1/4
• 2 dividers 13 x 7-3/8 (8 inches minus 5/8 inch)

Here’s How –

1. To make an 8 x 30 x 13 inch book bin, cut wood (or ask someone at the man store) to dimensions above. For a different size, carefully map out the measurements you need, taking the thickness of your wood into account, and cut.
2. Lay your bottom piece flat on your work surface. Glue the sides of your bin to the edges of the bottom piece and secure with a small nail gun. Both sides should now be flush along the bottom of the box and flush to the front and back of the bottom piece.
3. Next glue the front and back pieces in place and secure with a nail gun. These pieces will be flush to the bottom (like the side pieces) and flush to the sides, covering any cut edges of the bin.
4. Place dividers in desired spots and nail them in. *TIP: Before adding the dividers, we grabbed some of the kids books and figuring out what sizes we needed to be able to fit. In the end we decided to make the middle section an inch or so bigger than the two side sections to accommodate bigger books.
5. Drill a hole in the bottom 4 corners where you want your legs. Make sure your hole is smaller than the screw in the legs, otherwise your legs will be loose.
6. Lastly, paint and/or stain your fancy new wood box to desired taste! Ours is stained and then we added a strip of wide painters tape along the top edge of the box and painted below – including the legs – for a “dipped” look.

Start to finish this project cost approx. $50 and took around 5 hours of hands-on time over the course of a few days– because deciding how and what to paint the bin was a struggle!!! Too much pressure after all that work of putting it together! Beyond happy with how it turned out tho.

A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE BOOKS LATELY

Maya Angelou (Little People, Big Dreams) / The Book With No Pictures / The Day the Crayons Quit / The Dark / Danny and the Dinosaur / Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

 

Please share any current favorite kid books in the comments below. I asked a couple weeks ago on Instagram and got some great responses. Always looking to add new ones to our collection!

I’ll also do my best to answer any follow up questions about the tutorial if you have them.

XO, Rae