Creative use of space

As most of you know, we share a small 1-bedroom apartment with a rabbit named Charlie. He's quite spoiled and he sleeps in a palatial cage that's actually intended for a full-grown Great Dane or St. Bernard. Until recently, this has pretty much been wasted space for us. That is until I had a light bulb moment and wondered if I could turn the top of his cage into a baby changing station. It occurred to me that I could put a board across the top of the cage, add a changing pad and voila, instant changing table. My initial idea was to just paint a piece of plywood and maybe put some thin trim around the edge to get rid of the rough corners. Scott improved on that plan and suggested I cover it in fabric instead. So the project began...

We bought a piece of plywood at Home Depot. We had them cut it for us since they'll do that for free anyway and then we had a much smaller piece of wood to transport. I went to Joann's Fabric to get a coordinating piece of solid fabric and some kind of padding. I found a nice shade of green fabric and a sheet of some really nice unbleached cotton padding intended to be the inside of a baby quilt. After seeing many things padded on many a home improvement show I had a feeling this project wasn't going to be too difficult. As it turns out, it is as easy as it looks on TV.

The finished product is below. The shelf on the end will hold a lot of our day-to-day baby items; diapers, wipes, socks, onesies, sleepers, receiving blankets, etc. Surprisingly, we already have quite a bit of stuff.

The changing pad will go where the towel is, but we don't have one yet. A changing table for about $30; even Ikea can't beat that. If you have a keen eye, you may have noticed baby's first stuffed animal is indeed a RAT!