Woman's $10 DIY Frame Storage Hack Praised: 'Could Have One in Every Room'

An interior decorator's incredible hack for turning a simple picture frame into a hidden cabinet has gone viral on TikTok and Instagram.

Sarahli Wilcox shared the video on her social media (@hauz.and.co), and people were amazed at the simplicity of creating a functioning cabinet from a wall hanging.

Wilcox said on TikTok that the creation is "truly the best storage saving hack" she has used in her home. She also gave users a step-by-step guide of how she put it together for around $10.

With homeowners looking for new ways of adding storage to create more space, or of upcycling items they have lying around, it's no surprise that the home improvement market is ever growing. In 2022, the sector was worth $558 million. That figure is expected to continue increasing to $621 million by 2025.

Wilcox began by drilling together pieces of pinewood and creating the shelves that are hidden behind the picture frame, which she buys for between $4 and $10. She then sanded and stained each piece, so all the wood is the same color. Wilcox added hinges that she ordered online for $5, to connect the picture frame to the shelving unit.

With four antique-looking picture frames on her wall, it looks like an ordinary gallery wall, but the hidden storage is an added bonus.

Wilcox, from Arizona, uses her storage frame to store makeup, medicine, perfumes and other small items that she doesn't want on display. The idea has gained over 1.1 million views on TikTok and 6.5 million views on Instagram, which Wilcox certainly wasn't expecting.

After sharing the simple yet effective storage hack, Wilcox told Newsweek that the idea came from an old medicine cabinet she had in her home growing up. It was useful for storing miscellaneous items, but she found it was quite bulky and didn't look very chic.

However, Wilcox loved the concept, so she decided to create her own with a more aesthetic design instead.

"My husband was always talking about putting another cabinet up, and that got me thinking that maybe I could recycle something I wasn't using," Wilcox said.

"At the time, I had been saving a lot of frames that I'd found at Goodwill and Savers, which were very inexpensive. I was able to stain them and make them fit my home décor, so I'd been using those frames for an aesthetic look.

"So I thought, 'What better way of using the frames than as a cabinet, and just building a shadow box around it?' It just took a bit of thinking about how I would put it together, but it came from a mix of things I'd seen previously," Wilcox added.

Putting the cabinet together takes about two days, as the frame needs to be stained and left to dry.

Wilcox loves the idea so much that she even joked on TikTok that she "could have one in every room."

After showing her followers the step-by-step guide for putting the décor together, the creator hopes to encourage more people to try the simple DIY hack.

"I would recommend this to an amateur if they want to do a wood project. I think it's a fairly easy project that they can get the hang of really quickly," Wilcox said.

"Everyone has loved the idea, and I think that's because of the simplicity of it. It's always the simple projects that leave people in awe," she added. "It's just very doable, and that's why people are so amazed because they can see themselves doing it."

Since Wilcox shared the fun idea, she has received thousands of comments across social media from people suggesting the different ways they are going to use their very own picture-frame cabinets. The different ideas have varied from a nail-polish cabinet, storage for jewelry, or a hidden spice-rack.

One person commented on the TikTok video: "What's better is that you could do this for any aesthetic, and any size picture as well. Love it!"

Another person wrote: "I love seeing form married with function. What a smart way to achieve more storage while maintaining an aesthetic!"

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