Pottery Barn Teen Inspired Wood & Wire Basket Storage Tutorial

Pottery Barn Teen Inspired Wood & Wire Basket Storage Tutorial

Happy Summer! Welcome to another tutorial brought to you by me, Kristen at Lipstick and Sawdust. This tutorial was SUPER simple and took maybe 45 minutes (total build time) to make, you can so do this knockoff! It cost around 45 dollars to build.


This project was completed for my church youth recreation room. The youth pastor called me requesting some type of storage for ping pong balls, paddles etc. I saw this on the Pottery Barn Teen website and got to work. Off the record though? I like mine much better, my version of it anyway.

I built this piece mostly in my kitchen, but did the spray painting and sanding outside, it was snowing and freezing cold!

PB Teen Wood and Wire Basket storage

The original inspiration. 

Here's how I did it. First, I went shopping. My local home goods had these baskets for 8.99 each. I bought 3 of them.

They were white, so I removed the tags and spray painted them silver, going for the industrial feel.

Then I hunted a scrap piece of 2x6 to use as the wooden plank it was 57 inches long. Bingo!

I spaced out the baskets leaving 6 inches on either end of the board. 

Then worked on finishing the board to make it look less "straight off the scrap pile". I sanded it with my belt sander then orbital sander until smooth. 

Belt sander 80 grit then 120 grit. 

Orbital sander 220 grit until smooth. 

Then I wiped off the sawdust and prepped for very light staining. 

For stain, I literally took a tiny amount of provincial by minwax left over stain from my shop and rubbed it on the top and sides of the wood with a large cotton ball. This took just a few minutes. 

I allowed to dry then did 2 layers of paste wax over top to protect it.  

I printed out numbers from my computer in a cute font, then cut them out with my tiny curved eyebrow scissors while I watched The Real Housewives of _(fill in blank)___. This took a while, and was a little messy. 

I divided the wooden plank into three sections, arranged the baskets, marked and then laid out the stencils. 

To stencil I used a paintbrush dipped in some black paint and gently stenciled (read: dabbed) over the numbers. 

Then I attached the baskets using picture/mirror framing hardware that I picked up from Ace Hardware like this:

Called Mirror channel holders. 

Two for each basket.... The wire fits snugly down into the channels, I attached then from the back of the wood.

Then I purchased two flat corner brackets also from Ace hardware and attached them to the two corners to make the piece look industrial-y. Like these: 

I used 2.5 or 3 inch L brackets. 

And....done! Now that was easy!!!

Installed at church using hex top screws into the studs after using a stud finder and level and marking.

Hope you like this tutorial! 

Drop me a line! 

Like me on FB! 

Happy Building- Kristen