My "Nester" Table

As you can imagine, storage is pretty valuable in our home, so when I saw this post on Nester's Blog, it really inspired me to be creative with what we had around the house and maybe we could come up with some more pretty storage solutions.

So, I enjoy working with wood. I've made a few wooden things to enhance our home, like the compost bin and the raised beds, etc. Also we had the typical newlywed particle board/ cinder block shelves in the basement to store things, but recently we invested in some nice shelves that hold more and look better. So I gathered some leftover 2x3's and a couple particle boards and came up with the above. I didn't take pictures of the assembly, but I made the table to fit just below our windowsills. I think it's 36" wide.

So I took a $2 toile remnant and decided where I wanted to center it on the top. I pulled it taut and secured it with upholstery tacks and trimmed off the excess.

Then I took the checked piece ($5 in the bargain fabrics), trimmed the excess off the piece and folded the top down so the raw edges were hidden and temporarily secured it with more upholstery tacks.

Then I found some black lining in my fabric stash and again folded down the top so no raw edges were showing. This time I secured the black lining with shiny black upholstery tacks, removing the temporary tacks as I went along.

Then I gathered the lining in a pretty way and pinned it up like this with a safety pin. This took a while as I played with it and manipulated it the way I like it.

I did the other side but this was the hardest part of the project~ getting the second side to match the first side. It still doesn't match, but like Nester says, it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.

I fluffed the bottom of the skirts to add a little pooffiness as the bottom and added our lamp with my favorite shade. (Actually, I've been thinking of spray painting the base black. What do you think?)

Voila!

And I will be using the hidden shelf to hold my stacks of table linens. It's good to have one place for all the napkins and table cloths and runners.