Thank you to Sauder for sponsoring today's post.  
The most popular room in our house (or the room where we spend the most time) is hands down the family/playroom. It is open onto the kitchen and has the TV and a bunch of the kids toys, so it is where they tend to hang out.

It is also one of the rooms I have never really decorated.

Yes, I did install a gallery wall which features the kids artwork and we bought some generic furniture to fill the space, but I never really did much with the room. I figured it didn't need to be anything more than functional since it was almost always a wreck and nobody ever hung out in there besides the kids.

But then recently I purchased a new rug and my entire perspective changed. After I threw it into the playroom, it suddenly dawned on me that it wouldn't take much to make the room ‘pretty' and there was no need to store all the toys in plain sight. Everything could be disguised. I just needed the right furniture choices to do that.

So it was fate when Sauder offered to send me something from their website to help update any room in my house.. It was the answer to my problems!

Here is a photo of the room after I added the new rug:

You can see all the toys stacked in the corner, and the seats clustered around the TV. Toys were stored in the open, and there was a little craft table in the corner that was nothing more than a clutter catcher. Not exactly glamorous. So my furniture choice had to provide me a way of hiding stuff while still keeping it accessible.

To find the perfect piece I went to Sauder.com and started browsing. The site is actually set up very intuitively. You can search by product type, room type or by style and collection. After looking at the room types I decided I wasn't going to limit myself to living room furniture and decided to take a different approach.

I knew I as going to place whatever furniture piece I chose on the wall under the kids' artwork gallery, which features an all white frames. So I went to the style lab tab and searched by color:

I selected the "Soft White" finish (which corresponds to my frames) and then selected "Shelves and Organization" as a filter (siince I needed something that would provide a lot of closed storage.)


The Sewing/Craft Cart appeared in the search results and I knew I had found winner. Closed and compartmentalized storage all behind white shaker style doors. Exactly the look that would fit in the room. I ordered it online (which was a breeze, the Sauder website is super easy to navigate.)

Less than a week later It arrived on my doorstep and I was super excited to put it together.

My handy little assistant had to get involved. We are going to have another little DIY'r on our hands:

I didn't take any step by step photos of the assembly. It went so fast, and the directions were so straight forward I didn't even think about grabbing my camera. (I will say that I have put together A LOT of self-assembly furniture and these were some of the best instructions. Often you put a shelf in backwards or have a hard time figuring out which piece goes where, but that wasn't the case here. Everything was labeled with stickers and the directions warned you when to put certain edges forward and which exact hardware to use. It was SO EASY.)

Here is what the cabinet looks like totally opened up:

I was pretty excited about all the compartments and storage, perfect of the kids craft supplies, plus the top opens up to form a long work area (great for doing art projects.) This piece can now replace the small children's table that was in the corner of the room.

The beauty is that you wouldn't even realize that it is a craft organizer when it is closed. It looks like a small buffet, especially when it is pushed up against the wall

For additional storage I used the kids' toy chest (which is filled with toys) as a coffee table. The little wooden play kitchen stayed in the corner but all the play food and dishes are hidden away.

I added a lamp to give a little extra light on that side of the room and don't you love that ceramic "6"? You get why I have that right?


If you had to update a room with a new piece of Sauder furniture what would you choose?
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Sauder. The opinions and text are all mine.