Wooden organizers are a great way to free up space and creatively store items at home or at the office. Because of their cost-effective nature, they are easy to build and useful for holding everything from books to toys to electronic devices. My six year old son’s room has a wall full of organizers that my wife and I worked on, and the result has been wonderful, both in terms of storage and his reaction. Listed out below is a short how-to guide for building some wooden organizers of your own.

First, decide what size storage units you want and how many you’ll need. We built a variety of units with different shelving options, but each one measured out as a 1.5′ x 3′ block. This ensured that we could stack and sort as we saw fit. The timber we used was your basic board (pine in this case) and 1 ½” screws were used to hold the pieces of wood together. For the backs of some of the units, plywood was used.

First we decided how many units we wanted and what they could be used for, and then we cut the wood accordingly. After that, we sanded down the edges of the wood so items wouldn’t catch on any stray splinters. Once this was done, my wife took some brightly colored spray paint, laid the pieces of wood out in the back yard and sprayed them down. The plywood backs we tried something else on; we went to the hardware store and bought some wallpaper trim (ours had cartoon dinosaurs on it) and covered the back boards with that. Once they were dry enough, we screwed the boards together into a cube shape with 3 screws per connection point.

The only thing left at this point was to insert various shelf pieces. We went for a variety, with some blocks having a T shelf while others were given the traditional one shelf across the inside of the cube. Some we left empty for storing larger items, but in the end it didn’t matter, because once we started stacking everything shelves were positioned every which way!

One thing I would recommend is that you buy a strong, protective spray paint. If stronger paint isn’t an option for your needs, then by some type of clear coat sealer to protect the paint on the wood. This not only looks better, but it gives the wood a glossier finish. Also, we sprayed each piece with a solid color, then went back and used multiple colors to randomly spot the containers. The result is that my son has a very colorful, very organized room.  Read more here about wooden organizer.