I recently created my list of "18 in 2018" inspired by the wonderful Happier with Gretchen Rubin Podcast and I'm proud to say that I checked off the first item on my list--making side tables for our living room! 

My list is kind of all over the place, but quite a few of them relate to making our home more personal, intentional, and calm. One thing that can make our house less calm is having lots of clutter. My husband has nicely observed to me, "you sure have a lot of art supplies around the house" (and not quite as nicely says when other people ask where I make art: "Everywhere"). So, to try to manage the clutter making art creates, I made it a goal to make two simple, inexpensive side tables with storage capacity. 

Enter wood crate + sand paper + wood stain and ... voila! You've got a super simple side table. I'm really happy with how these turned out, and they cost a grand total of $15 each. I ordered two of these wood crates and this wood stain from Michaels (it's really easy to find 20% off coupons for Michaels as well so you can save even more). Then my husband and I set to work sanding them down. They were fairly rough, so you'll want to spend some time sanding before staining to make sure you don't get splinters when taking things out of your new side table if you make your own. After sanding, I used an old rag to apply the stain. The stain recommends adding some kind of sealant on top of this, but I haven't yet gotten around to doing that. At some point, we may also add legs to the tables, but for now I'm going to count these as DONE!  I'm happy with them and my husband is VERY happy that my collage supplies are tucked away in their new home and not covering all of the available surfaces in our small apartment.

Do you have a list of 18 in 2018? Are any of them to make something for your home? Let me know in the comments!