The whole higgeldy-piggedly “pile of boxes as storage unit” has been sort of quiet trend over on Apartment Therapy for a while now.
Ikea’s got a pre-made version you can buy; they’ve also posted this version over on their blog made from some of their storage boxes (tops set aside), interiors painted. Although I love this — the unfinished wood, the pastel colors, the imperfect straightforward ingenuity of it, the clever re-use thing that always tugs at my heart — this is one of those things that looks gorgeous in a picture but I always feel slightly worried about whether it will work in real life or I’ll just have a repeat of one of the decorating fiasos from my first apartment: I saw a daybed designed by Vicente Wolfe that looked very similar to my childhood crib. Mattress covered in linen, bolsters added, it looked gorgeous. And then. And then I had a party and two (or was it three?) very grown-up sized people sat on it and it collapsed to the ground. So while I keep these things in my inspiration book, they don’t always make it into my real life. But damn if I’m not always tempted.