One of the best pieces in the boy’s room is the little stackable storage cubbies that I scored for a big discount. They were a thrift store find and still had the Pottery Barn Kid’s price tags on them. I got them for $30 a piece…making the purchase for all four pieces $120….and the original price was well over $700. They were in used condition (close to something you would find at the outlet) but obviously anything that you put in a kid’s room, you should expect to get well-worn. I’ve had to teach myself to not get too attached because ALL THE TEARS should not be over furniture. The only problem I had with the storage cubbies was the bottom two deeper big cubbies….regular baskets (aka cheap baskets from Walmart or Hobby Lobby) would not fit down there and I was not about to spend $30 a basket online. It just became a place to throw spare books and randoms.
Well, now I am happy to announce that the bigger cubbies have two very fun costume boxes.
Side note…have you noticed on Pinterest how almost all the costume storage solutions are princessy and pink and ballerina-y? My boys just haven’t gotten into that. They want to be “Dark Vader” and “Skeltiens” and “Super-reros”. And I am all about costumes…so obviously I needed a designated costume box for the boy’s costumes and masks and weaponry.
This journey for costume boxes began a VERY long time ago….like right after LJ was born. We started by building the boxes out of 1/2″ plywood.
The assembly was pretty simple….four sides with a bottom laid on the inside.
glue…
and brad nail together. (note that this picture was taken ten days after LJ was born….sometimes these projects take us a long time!)
There is my little LJ! So small that he fit in the box! Also….Max wore those jammies last night
I painted the insides white and primed the outsides before putting on a coat of Benjamin Moore’s Hale Navy paint.
Once the outside was done, I really wanted to add a cool textural element to the fronts.
I cut out a scrap 1×1 to make these little squares and sanded them all down before adding them to the front.
The effect looked really great….I loved it….up until the squares started falling off.
It was so frustrating. I tried a bunch of different glues and should have just brad nailed them on….but then I realized that they would probably crack if I tried to pre drill for handles….so I ended up scrapping the entire idea and went another route. I still think this is a cool effect though…I definitely want to use it somewhere else…
So rewind back to the regular boxes….ready for a cool front effect….
I decided that different widths of scrap lumber would be cool too….
Laid them out on top for a pattern alternating fat and skinny…
And then traced the box onto the boards….
Once I had my cut lines, it was relatively simple….
cut the boards on the lines…. (picture taken in January when I didn’t know I was pregnant!)
glue and brad nail in place….
Then I sanded all the edges and stained the boards Rustoleum’s Dark Walnut.
Then came my favorite part….the knobs!
I saw these at Hobby Lobby for $3 a piece and knew that Will was going to FLIP HIS LID when he saw them.
Predrilling action…
Doing a little touch-ups on the edge where I got too excited about the staining process….
And then came time for making the bottoms slide-able on the wood bases. I used fleece that I could just cut to size.
Once I laid the fleece out and trimmed the excess, it was ready to be adhered.
Spray adhesive on…
Fleece ready to be rolled on….
Placed the edge on first and then gently rolled it over to the opposite edge.
Smooth and press firmly! This was actually the easiest part of the project and it makes the ‘drawers’ more like drawers on a slide….but with no drilling or hardware required.
The knobs are so awesome, right?! I love Hobby Lobby for hardware. I think they are on sale almost all the time and the variety is great. These are big enough that if you wanted to make a coat hook out of them, they would work for that too.
The boy’s stuff fits really well….even the big stuff like Ninja Turtle shells and Captain America shields!
And they are easy to slide in and out. Will and Weston can both do it. We purposely made these boxes a little small (we left an inch clearance on each side instead of making it a tight fit) because we wanted to make it easy for the boys to push these in without banging up the sides.
Overall…they are a really great addition to the boy’s room….
I feel like the biggest challenge with kid’s spaces is just finding ways to store their stuff. It’s always awkward or super colorful or plastic or has a million pieces. It’s almost like you get a bunch of stuff for them and then you have to figure out how to store/keep/make it accessible. It’s a challenge for sure!
So that is our boy costume boxes and how we built them….do your kids get into costumes on the daily or is it more of a Halloween only thing? I know my family loves costumed play growing up….my sister and I were constantly playing with mom’s old clothes from the 60’s or being cheetah girl or SheRa! I wonder if that is a genetic thing?!
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