Creating Storage

I have a lot of stuff!  Every few months I go through a purging phase and try to give away things that I am not using.  That being said, I still need to find organized homes for lots of things.  Mike and I both need functional workspaces, so our second bedroom has two desks.  My old desk just wasn't cutting it.  It was constantly cluttered and really didn't store much of anything.

I looked for a long time trying to find the perfect desk.  One important limitation is that I never want to spend a lot of money.  One day at Ikea, my wheels started turning and I ended up with this:

See how I made it and and get a closer look at all of the stuff I am able to fit in it after the jump.

First of all, the nitty-gritty details.  The desk is made out of two Ikea expedit bookshelves and an old Ikea table top.  I stacked the table top on top of the two shelves and put a couple of double sided tape circles to lightly hold the things in place.

Here is a view from the right side.  Next to my desk, I keep my sewing machine and printer.  It works for now.

Let's get a little closer.  Here are two views of the right side bookshelf.

   This first picture is the outside, more visible side of the bookshelf.  I keep a bunch of paper, envelopes and cardstock in the top left corner.
   My favorite magazines that warrant being kept stay in the top right section.  You can also see some crafty books and screen printing ink.
   The bottom left hold miscellaneous stuff: CDs, stickers, a mystery bag.  It's the "junk drawer" of the desk.
   The bottom left holds a bunch of records.  I might reorganize later to make both of the bottom sections for records.

Here's the inside view of the same shelf.  Opposite the magazines, I have a few containers with sewing materials, felt, ribbon and other stuff.

 Here is the other shelf (the left side).  You can see that I have a desk organizer thingy, all of my binders, and then a milk crate that has a bunch of my painting supplies.  Not pictured, on the outside part of the shelf are a couple cans of markers.















It has helped so much with managing clutter.  The rest of my supplies are stored in the second bedroom closet as well as some open shelving with pegboard.  After some more spring cleaning, you can see those too.

Price breakdown:
Two Expedit shelves: $80
Ikea tabletop: $0 (I already had this)
Sticky circles: $0 (I already had these)
TOTAL: $80   Not bad, eh?