You can do it yourself! Laundry Basket Shelf

A few months ago, I saw this picture on Pinterest and thought, "Hey, I could really use something like that!"
Not too long ago, I bought 4 matching laundry baskets for clean, folded clothes to go in to be carried upstairs to the appropriate bedroom to be put away. HA! What happened was the baskets would be filled to over-flowing and plopped down in some conspicuous location and then when someone needed some article of clean clothing, the clothes would be dumped out all over the floor until said article was found. So much for neatly folded clothes!
So, when I saw this unit, my thoughts turned quickly to, "Where in the heck would I put it?" and when I answered that question, I set about figuring out how to make it!
Luckily, my father-in-law came to visit around that time, and he let me drag him to Home Depot and talk him into building it for me! Score!
We purchased the wood panels for the top, bottom, back and each side, wood for the shelf brackets, and molding for the sides and a little bit larger molding for the top edge.

Of course, my shelf had to be pink. And, I decided to go with one shelf instead of two, separate, stacking units as in the original idea. And, as we were wandering around Home Depot, I suggested that maybe a little decorative molding would make my shelf look a little more "furniture-y" (that is totally a word) and a little less utilitarian.

Since I knew that my girls would be using the shelf alot, and was a little worried about the sharp edges of metal shelf supports, my father-in-law suggested using wood supports instead. Perfect solution!

I spray painted the unit pink - I love spray painting!
On each of those matching laundry baskets I bought, I tied cute little luggage tags that I made for each person (my husband and I share a basket, since our clothes get put away sooner, we didn't need as much space.)

I would have loved to have gotten a picture of the shelf with nice empty laundry baskets, but that wouldn't be real life now would it? ;)

Bottom line, I love this thing. I wish I had it a long time ago. If laundry is something that is a problem for you, hurry to Home Depot and go get your handyman groove on!