How to transform a wicker trunk – part 3

Over the last few days, we’ve been working on transforming a wicker trunk into shoe storage. First we cleaned, vacuumed and painted the trunk and we upholstered the inside and the outside, and even added on some cushioning. In this last part, we’re adding the sectioning so we can store our many shoes and sandals (guilty!) neatly away and out of sight.

The last part was a bit time consuming but definitely worth it!

What you need:

Cardboard, quite sturdy – 2 pieces a little shorter than the trunk + 5 pieces same width as the trunk
strong scissors
pencil or pen for marking
ruler or measuring tape

How you make it

Our aim is to create a shoe cubby hole, squares large enough to partition the trunk so shoes and sandals will fit. The main cubby holes will fit sandals easily, and the boots and sneakers will fit in the larger cubby holes on one end. First measure your trunk so you know what widths and heights we’re working with. My trunk is 35cm wide for example, but yours may not be, thus you’ll need to adjust for that.

First take the long pieces of cardboard and ensure they fit neatly in the trunk. Preferably, they are 1 or 2 cm lower than the trunk. Then take the other 5 pieces of cardboard and ensure they are the right size for the trunk. I measured mine and ended up with 5 squares of 35cm. Now we need to divide them evenly in 3. Seeing my trunk is 35cm wide, I cannot perfectly divide the cardboard in 3. Closest would be 33cm, i.e. 11cm, 11cm and 11cm with a spare 2cm. I divided the squares by measuring 11cm from the left edge and 11cm from the right edge. This leaves me with approx 13cm in the middle of the board. Repeat with the other 4 pieces.

Draw a straight line down the squares, but leave approx 1,5cm from the bottom end. Then cut along this line but do not cut all the way through. Just cut up to the 1,5cm unmarked centimetres from the bottom.

Now take the main two large pieces of cardboard and place them next to one another. I was on my own assembling this, so I may have gotten a little creative seeing I do not have another pair of hands (which would have been so practical!). I placed the two pieces of cardboard upright, let one lean against my leg while holding the other one with my one hand. Then I took 1 square piece of cardboard and slid it over both large pieces so I had the start of my grid for the cubby holes. I then repeated the same with the other 4 pieces and ended up with something like this: