ROLLING TOY BOX

If your family room is anything like mine, toys are everywhere! I have organized the toys into plastic cubes a number of times, but at the end of the day my children DO NOT organize their toys. The toys are just thrown all together and my children CAN DO that.

I noticed Serena & Lily's rolling boxes a while back and thought they were cute, but I really don't have space for something like a big box. So I got to thinking and we have space under our buffet / t.v. stand.

Source: Serena & Lily

My husbands grandfather had given us about 4 sets of rolling wheels months ago and I found set that were Brand New just a little larger that I would have liked, but oh well this was a FREE project that I was attempting.

I pulled out some of my stock pile of PALLET wood and got to work. I have some plywood as well that I pulled from the dumpster at the local construction site, so this project was a NO COST one :)

I did a rough measurement under my buffet table to get an idea of what size box I could fit. My thought was the Bigger the box, the more space I would have for toys. Looking at it now it's a little big for the space, but it works.

I measured height, remembering to subtract the size of your wheels. If you have a 28" space & 4" wheels you would have a box with a 24" height, measure length, and depth. I have an outlet that I'm hiding under my table, so I didn't measure all the way to the back of the wall. The power cords stick out about 2", that is what I measured to.
 

 Measured out the bottom on a piece of plywood and used my chalk string to mark a straight line. My box is 27" long, 16 " deep (wide), and 14" high. After cutting my plywood I noticed that I wanted the front and back to only show the pallet planks. You will need to subtract whatever size wood you are using for the ends from your base measurement. 

Example: 27" long, with 1/4" plywood for the end pieces would be a 1/2" (two end pieces at 1/4" each is a 1/2") so 26 1/2"

I used a T square ruler to mark a straight line at one end of your planks and cut that end so it's straight. Then measure your board out, in my case 27". 

Everything laid out to think about it! With every cut I made during this project, plans would change...lol

  Cutting all my boards to length.

I sanded everything down before I started building.

 I did have to use some wood glue on one board that had a large crack in it.

I don't have any clamps so I improvised...rubber bands?? It worked!!

Clamps would be MUCH better for this, but I didn't want to buy anything.

I glued all my boards together, once again I need a way to hold the boards together....rope?? It worked!!

I had two large boards and one smaller one that ended up ea-quelling out the height I needed (14"). Glued the two together, then the third.

  I now had two side pieces.

After dropping one of my "walls" and one of the boards braking off, I attached them all together with scrap wood on the inside of the box. As you can see in the picture bellow.

Like I said, plans changed as I went along and building something SQUARE is very difficult, even more so with imperfect pallet wood.

The Ends

Measure out width and height, in my case 16" x 14". I just eye balled where I wanted the handle holes to go and used a diaper box tab to trace the shape onto my wood, making it a little larger though.

Drill a large pie-let hole for your jig saw.

 

 Cut out your handle.

Putting it all together

  At this point I was getting a little frustrated with trying to make it all fit together, and I had to do a lot of "trimming" off to make it work and I stopped taking pictures. I was plugging & un-plugging all my power tools and using the staple gun in a very un-safe manner to put it all together.

See how one end is higher than the other side?? Plug the jig saw BACK IN!

See the 1x1 on the bottom? After putting it all together I would have ran a 1x1 on all four sides around the bottom and staple your side pieces to the 1x1. The same for all four corners. Run a 1x1 in the corners, running up, for better durability.

  Bolted on my wheels and I was DONE!

Made sure that it fit!!

See the plant on the side? That's what I had under the buffet before to hid all the wires.

 Stained it.

Dry brushed it.

Our last name, and the year our first child was born.

 IN LOVE!!

I did find some good deals on rolling casters (wheels) on ebay.

~ Desiree ~
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ROLLING TOY BOX