Simply Beautiful By Angela

creating simple beauty on a budget

DIY Wire Hamper with Canvas Laundry Bag

Hello!  Did you all get a chance to check out my One Room Challenge Farmhouse Bedroom reveal last week?  I am still pretty excited that it’s done AND super exhausted!  I had a few days off from work last week and didn’t feel like doing a thing!

As promised, I am going to start sharing tutorials on the many DIYs that went into making this room. I’ll start with the one that was originally meant solely for function but ended up being a really pretty piece.

We used to have a small wicker hamper that only held a couple days worth of clothes before they started overflowing onto the floor.  It seriously made my skin crawl and was soooo frustrating.

Every hamper that I found online or in the stores was just as small so I decided that we could try to make one.  And I am so happy with how it turned out!

Supplies Used: (Affiliate links may be provided for convenience.  For more info, see my full disclosure here.) 

I began by staining my round pine board with Rust-Oleum Wood Stain in Kona.  This was the most expensive supply at $11.50 but if you have some scrap plywood laying around you could cut one yourself with a jigsaw.

After this step I let the hubby take over since I was neck deep in all my other projects for the room.  He figured out the circumference of the wood which was about 54″ and cut the excess off the wire remesh sheet with the bolt cutters.  He left a few inches so that he had enough to fold over.

He used pliers to make a hook  to attach one end to the other.

For the base he cut the bottom off each square so that he could form these against the wood.  He secured them with a staple gun but honestly the wire is so heavy duty that it wasn’t even budging before putting the staples in.

Once he was done with that I started on the laundry bag. Let me preface this by telling you all that I am terrible at sewing!  But it was actually pretty easy to put together.  It helps that the 4′ x 5′ sized drop cloth that I found at Lowes was the perfect size for this hamper and required no trimming or hemming.

I began by placing my rope along the top of the 5′ side, folded it over and sewed that down.

 (you will probably get a straighter seam than I did if you use pins but I was in a hurry!)
Next, with that seam facing me, I folded it in half “hot dog style” and sewed the ends together. You may be thinking that this will cause the seam that you just sewed to show on the wrong side–but you’ll be flipping that over in the end!
I started 6 inches down and left that top part un-sewn for the time being. 
At this point I also pinned the circle that I cut out for the bottom and sewed that on.
(sewing in a circle definitely isn’t easy and mine isn’t perfect but once it’s flipped right side out you can’t tell!)
When I flipped it right-side out I sewed that 6 top inches that I previously had left.
And when I folded that 6 inches down all seams were hidden!
I keep my tied rope hidden in the back.
It worked out really nice that the drop cloth had all of the edges hemmed already because it even looks pretty on the inside.
It fits next to the dresser perfectly and at 3.5″ it  tall it holds a ton of laundry.
Here’s another picture of what it looks like on the bottom.

The wire isn’t treated at all so some parts are kind of rusted.  I asked the hubby if I should spray paint it but he told me “no way!” because he likes the industrial feel it gives to it.

Oh and don’t worry about trying to get it into a perfect circle!  The hubby fought with it for a long time and in the end we just put that part in the back 🙂
This is a quick cartoon that I had created when I was trying to figure out how to sew the laundry bag together.  It  might explain the process a little better than my terrible nighttime photographs!
Hope that helps a little!
The total cost for me was about $29 since I only needed the wood, wire remesh sheet, rope and the dropcloth. Not too bad considering I’ve seen these online for $90 or more–yikes!!
 Have a happy weekend everyone, I will be back next week!
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