I have been slowly turning the dining room in our new house into a library for myself. There is one awkward nook in the corner that I wanted to use for more shelving/storage space.

I looked at several different narrow bookshelves, but was also trying to stick to a budget. Searching Pinterest, I came across the idea to use wooden crates to make my own shelves. In addition to low cost, another benefit of this plan was that I could stagger the shelves to maximize the use of the space. So I went to Lowe’s and bought 7 wooden crates.

First, we sanded them down to get rid of some of the roughness.

Then I used paint that we already had from our old house to paint the crates. I painted most of the crates a white color and the bottom of the crate a purplish-gray. Since I knew certain parts of the crates weren’t going to show, I did not have to paint the entire crate.

Once the paint was dry, we set them up in this staggered pattern. I didn’t even attach them to each other. I’m just using the support of the walls to keep them tight in place.

Now, I’ve got extra storage for books and pens and such. My printer even fits perfectly in the bottom crate. It isn’t perfectly styled, but it is functional and cute and I’m proud that I made something!