For the past few weeks, I have been tackling more of our main living space. Filling the holes and the gaps to complete the look I have in my mind is really helping it to feel so cozy. One part of this has been to figure out storage for our living room media console. Or credenza. Seriously, what do we call pieces like this?! Above this hangs our TV which of course means plenty of cords and electronic clutter. I wanted to share with you an easy and clever DIY to hide clutter within your decor – whether it be toys, electronics, or whatever other eye sores you see throughout your home.

I knew I wanted to utilize baskets for additional storage. This is always an important approach when living in a smaller space with so many people. Your goal is to add extra storage wherever you can! Even though there are three bottom sections of the media credenza that would all have a basket added to them, the center one is where the cords and the family Nintendo Wii is kept. These are things that I didn’t want to simply toss into a basket due to issues like accessibility and worse, overheating. 

So, I had the thought of using one of the three baskets to create a “faux front” so that the center section would still match the others. I found these large and extremely sturdy milk crate-style baskets at Target that also fit the dimensions I needed. And basically, at this point, it was a hope and a prayer that cutting this basket literally in half would work. 

These baskets had woven sections that scissors worked fine on. However, there was a large interior wire that was thick and required the use of our circular saw to get through it. Just four simple cuts did the trick.

I then cut out the bottom part of the basket to make sure the electronics had enough space when this is placed in front of them.

The final detail was utilizing a hot glue gun to help secure the woven ends. I will say that this particular basket stayed together extremely well, but I wanted to give it a little more help with wear and tear over time.

I then added the two full baskets and “faux” basket front to the three sections of the media credenza. And voila! You would never know that the middle cubby doesn’t have a full basket in it like the other two. And you also don’t see the gathered cords and gaming console behind it. A total win and such an easy hack for getting rid of some of those eyesores around the house that we are all familiar with.

If you are wanting to tackle this easy and clever DIY to hide clutter within your decor, I wanted to share three simple tips with you:

1. Choose a tightly woven and sturdy basket. It has to have a good structure to help hold its shape after being cut in half.
2. Make sure to find where the thicker wires of your basket frame are and plan your cut around that (I wanted that to be part of the half we kept for the final look to help it be even sturdier).
3. Line the back edges of where you cut using a hot glue gun. This will *hopefully* help ends not fray over time.

So what do you think? No one’s gonna know, right? Wink! 

Just below are the pieces I have loved adding to this space – they are linked so you can shop them too. And keep scrolling to catch the reel I put together that walks you through the process!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Kara Layne (@thekaralayne)