Taking Charge

As you can tell from the title, I am taking charge!  And nope, I am not a big boss lady.  I am taking charge of a DIY project.  A "charging station" project.  I am writing this late at night, please forgive the lameness that is ensuing! 

Remember how I went shopping with one of my best blogger buds?  Well, I gave you a sneak peak at a little $4 Ikea purchase that I had jumbo plans for....

It's actually a tray, that I found in the bathroom section, meant to be used as a drawer divider to hold things such as toiletries and cotton balls.  But I don't have any drawers in my bathroom.  Ok, that sounded weird.

For us, the point of this little tray wasn't to be used as it's intended drawer dividing purpose.  Nope, it was to be used as a place for my man to toss the contents of his pockets.  You know, for those things that end up either on the console table, or the kitchen counter, or under a stack of papers, or in the washing machine... the phone, keys and wallet.

I shared here how I keep my nightstand organized, and the funny thing is, my hubs really has nothing in his nightstand drawers.  Seriously.  A box of love notes that we wrote back in those lovey dovey days, and that's it.  It really is too boring to share, but as a refresher, here is a snapshot of my nightstand...

Notice, most things have a place, I have my handy little phone charger.  Life is good.  But the hubs, his side was filled with some flowers, our water carafe, a random pile of loose articles and a charger cord for his cell phone which is typically wrapped around something so it won't fall to the floor each morning when he unplugs his phone.  Oh how I wish I would have taken a good "before shot".  I must get better at that.

So back to this box tray thingy.  It was doomed the second it entered my home.  We whipped out the drill, and put a hole in it, big enough for a charging cord to fit through...

Then, a couple of coats of white spray paint later... it looked like this:

Worlds better already.

But I wasn't done yet.  Using some leftover wallpaper from our closet project, I measured the openings to the box, and cut the paper down to size.

To secure the paper to the bottom of the tray, I snagged my handy bottle of Mod Podge!

And after applying per the directions on the bottle, I was left with this new Charging Station beauty!  {I applied a coat of Mod Podge to the tray to glue the paper on, after it dried, I also added a coat to the top of the paper to add some protection from items being placed on top of it}

The fun part was popping it on the hub's nightstand...

Seriously, his phone is snug as a bug in it's new home!!!  {Oddly enough my hubs wasn't home when I snapped these shots so I had to use his old phone and my keys, but they still prove to be a perfect fit!  Whew!}

So how do I feel about my recently completed tray converting project?  Well, the word on my keychain sums it up quite nicely!

Now giving everything on his nightstand a place to call home also.  Gotta love a happy ending like that!

A final before and after...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Who else is ready to take charge?  Anyone inspired to find some random empty container in their home to turn into something functional?  Any other home made charging station experiences?