DIY Decor: Stacked Vintage Suitcase Nightstand

Today we thought we'd share a peek into our bedroom — the DIY solution we came up with (with a little help from Pinterest) for one of our nightstands, that is...

Yep, those are stacked vintage suitcases and a wooden crate making up this bedside table — and we love the way it turned out:

Below are the stacked suitcase nightstands and inspiration images we'd been pinning with this fun idea:

It's amazing how many different variations you can pull together to create different looks. Inspiration images from top right to bottom left were all sourced via Pinterest, with their original sources credited below:

1. Pinned by Lauren Hastings, originally sourced from the Kemble Interiors New York Lookbook.
2. Pinned by Lena Wilson, originally sourced from this Better Homes & Gardens Slideshow.
3. Pinned by Rusty Retro Antiques, originally sourced from this House Beautiful Slideshow.
4. Pinned by Ronni Ascagni, originally sourced from Houzz.
5. Pinned by Clark Stevens, originally sourced from Country Living.

Here's what we came up with for our inspired take on this decorating concept:

Not too bad! This has got to be one of the easiest DIY decorating projects out there — we just collected varying sized vintage suitcases from around the house that were previously storing craft supplies like fabric and yarn and stacked them on up next to the bed where a nightstand would live:

I even kept the craft supplies in the suitcases since many of them are on the less than frequent use rotation (let's face it, I'm a craft supply hoarder) — so we've got some functional storage going on here too!

We topped the stacked suitcases with a vintage wooden crate since we had one on hand that seemed to give us the perfect height level next to the bed for actual use and had a smooth flat surface like a tabletop.

Down the road, we might try to find a piece of glass, marble or other flat surface to put on top of the wood crate so we can flip it right side up again — we realize it might look a little funny with upside down advertising on it at the moment:

As for dressing the table up, this is my side of the bed, so you're getting a look at the things essential to a good night's sleep in my book, ha. We've got a tin of Bag Balm (seriously can't live without this stuff), a mannequin hand holding a palm full of shark's teeth I've found down by the river-shore at my mom's house (also good for holding earrings I forgot to take out before bed) and a little bud vase where I like to put the leftover blooms from bigger bouquets on their last legs.

Funny story about that mannequin hand — one of my Etsy coworkers found a few of them in a dumpster on the way to work one morning when I was living in Brooklyn and I  begged him to let me have one on my desk at the time. I brought it back to Richmond with me when I moved and have had it in various places around the house ever since. Tim used to think things like this were creepy and now he's just grown to accept this part of me, ha.

You might also remember the DIY faux mercury glass finishing technique we used to get the mirror glass finish on that little bud vase along with the little upgrade we gave this previously broken lamp a few weeks back:

So that's the story of our suitcase bedside table! Will you make one after seeing how easy it is now? This idea would be great for a guest room or a fun way to create a side table between two chairs in a living room or beside a sofa. Heck, one could probably make a coffee table with a couple huge suitcases stacked up together.

What have you been repurposing lately?

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