My Thanksgiving project

First off, a warning! This is NOT a beautiful interiors post. This is a warty real life post. I might have mentioned on a few occasions my quest to find some good-looking CD storage. That was because I have a bit of a CD-buying problem (yes, I know. I'm an old-fashioned girl). Here's the dire result:

BEFORE. Two teetering piles dwarfing my little stereo! I thought that what I needed was pretty simple, yet I couldn't find it anywhere. But then I finally decided that what I needed was so simple, I could build it myself! Now I know that's an obvious conclusion in the DIY blogosphere, but I'm really not a DIY sort of person. I'm just not that handy. Plus, I live in a studio apartment and have no room to work on anything. But the Thanksgiving weekend brought me out to the suburbs, and my aunt has a workroom in her basement, so I was able to build this:

Considering I hadn't done any wood shop since Junior High, I'm quite pleased with the result! Originally, I was just going to leave the wood natural, but my aunt produced some spray paint and varnish, and I ended up with this two-tone look. I liked it better in my aunt's basement. The black sides get lost here, and the wood doesn't match the lightly stained piece below. All the same...

AFTER. Considerable improvement. In fact, the CDs (alphabetized, that's what was going on in the top picture) sit so nicely in my new shelves, that now I think I have to build a shelf into the unit I have underneath. So, we're not quite shelter mag-worthy, although I tried a classic shelter mag trick and had a houseguest pose with the new look:

She was unimpressed, but I'm happy.