DIY Rolling Crate For Easy Book Storage

AJ loves to read, and there are always books strewn all over the house. She’s quite happy to go into the living room and grab books off the bookshelf and bring them into the family room, or dining room, or kitchen to read them. But somehow they never end up getting back on the bookshelf. So I decided that mobile book storage was the solution. Today I’m going to show you how I made a DIY rolling crate to store her books: all you need is a wooden crate and a few casters (and paint if you want to decorate it) and you can make one in under half an hour!

DIY rolling crate for easy book and toy storage

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The idea for this project originally came from my friend Jacque who made rolling storage from upcycled wine crates that she found at a garage sale. I thought that was such a brilliant idea that I had to make one for our house as well!

This project is so simple; just attach casters to the bottom of a wooden crate and you’re done! If you want to decorate the crate, you can paint it or stain it and add a little label. Jacque stores hers under her coffee table, which is a great way to make use of that extra space, but you can also just leave the crate next to a couch or ottoman, and roll it around if it’s in the way or if you want to read books in a different room.

DIY Rolling Crate For Easy Book Storage

  • Time spent doing stuff: 25 minutes
  • Time spent waiting around: 30 minutes
  • Total project time: 55 minutes

NOTE: If you don’t paint or stain the crate first, the whole project takes less than 5 minutes!

Tools

Materials

NOTE: I used IKEA Slugger casters, which are plastic and pretty sturdy, but they don’t make them anymore. The link above goes to some great alternate caster wheel options you can get from Home Depot.

Easy DIY rolling crate for toy and book storage

Instructions

If you don’t want to paint or stain your crate, this project is as simple as attaching casters to the bottom of your crate, and you’re done!

If you’re going to paint the crate, do it before adding the wheels. Paint the entire crate (inside and out) with a quality paint. I used KILZ Complete Coat (available at Walmart) because it goes really well over unpainted wood and only requires one coat.

easy DIY rolling crate for toy or book storage

While the paint was drying, I made a simple vinyl stencil using my Cricut Explore Air. I loaded adhesive vinyl into the machine and cut out the word “Books”. Then I weeded away the letters themselves, leaving the background vinyl on the paper backing. I stuck transfer paper over the whole stencil to hold the centers of the o’s and B in place and pressed down hard to make sure the vinyl was stuck to the transfer paper.

Then I peeled the background vinyl off the paper backing, and the transfer paper held the “floating” parts in place.

easy DIY crate for toy or book storage

I stuck the stencil on the side of the crate and peeled off the transfer paper, pressing down hard to make sure the vinyl was really stuck.

easy DIY crate for toy or book storage

Then I used a small dauber to paint over the stencil.

easy DIY crate for toy or book storage

Once the paint was dry I peeled the vinyl off the crate, and the labels were done!

The last step is to add the casters. Turn the crate upside down and place one caster in a corner of the crate. Use short wood screws to attach the caster to the crate.

easy DIY crate for toy or book storage

Repeat for all four corners, and you’re done!

I brought the DIY rolling crate inside and AJ immediately wanted to fill it up with her books!

easy DIY crate for toy or book storage

She loves rolling it around and giving her books “a ride”, and when she wants to read, it’s the perfect size to sit next to her so she can easily reach all her favorite books.

easy DIY crate for toy or book storage

easy DIY crate for toy or book storage

She can easily put books away, or pull them out when she wants to read them. This DIY rolling crate is the perfect storage solution for books, and it was so easy to make!

easy DIY crate for toy or book storage

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Jessi Wohlwend

I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience. I love sharing simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, and other tips and tricks all with one goal in mind: giving you the tools you need to “do it yourself”, complete fun projects, and make awesome things!

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