The dorm “controversy” playing out in my house this week revolves around a popular Pinterest post about DIY’ing a cheap but cute metal trash can inverted and spray painted as an end table. D saw it and wants to do it for her room. That “budget” item is NOWHERE to be found online or in stores painted or otherwise. An actual, real bedside table would be far less expense and trouble. Sigh.
Maybe - get a metal pail from home depot and take off the handle?
too big?
@OHMomof2 I think I’ve got two of those in my office. The ones with the open holes in them make horrible trash cans. I wish you lived closer.
First, this occurs at some, but certainly not all, Southern schools. FWIW, I saw similarly decorated rooms at Syracuse. My D is a Southerner and attends school in the South. Although her room is very cute and decorated, it doesn’t look like these rooms (nor did I see any that did). Having said that, does it really matter how these girls choose to decorate their dorm rooms?
So there are girls who feel left out because they can’t afford to achieve this look. Sometimes my D whines because she drives a 13 year old car. She is occasionally envious of her friends who don’t have to work during summer and get to spend their summers traveling. I remind her that she is fortunate and that there will always be those who have more and those who have less. If you pin your happiness or self worth on your possessions, or constantly compare yourself to others, you will not be happy.
Here. It’s on sale, too, and you can be done @OHMomof2 Plus, copper is all the rage right now. 
http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=26389098&category=A_FURN_FURNITURE_TABLES
I don’t think this should qualify as a “controversy” in that people have a right to spend their money. Personally, I think they are cute but over the top. I can’t imagine how they are going to keep all that stuff looking nice, and it seems like far too much stuff in a teeny, tiny space. But to each her own. Then again, all girls are probably going to buy comforters and throw pillows, and all students (boys and girls alike) will probably loft their beds. All students probably buy extra lighting. The cute cabinets, I believe, hold refrigerators and/or microwaves that would probably be there anyway. The only real additions are the rugs and folding sofa thingies with the name I can’t remember. The big difference is that it is a coordinated effort.
What folding sofa thingies?
I think it would be great fun if we could all stop and help OHMomof2 decorate the dorm room! 
Already on it, @alh! 
These last few posts right here are what make CC great. Thank you guys!!
@doschicos that side table is basically what she wants to make. But note the Pinterest post - says “dollar store trash bin” (no, the dollar store doesn’t have any, neither does Target, Walmart, TJ Maxx or anyplace online that we’ve looked!)
@OHMomof2 , That exact trash bin (actually it was really sold as a table) is on sale at $8.50 now. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the overstock went to a dollar store. Dollar stores carry whatever overstock they get hands on and don’t always restock them. The original author may have been mistaken it as a trash bin when she found it at a dollar store. Understandable.
http://www.biglots.com/product/16-turquoise-garden-table/p810290959
Great find, @SculptorDad!! I love how its being passed off on pinterest as a DIY thing when its for sale as a finished product not a dollar store trash can.
I was getting dressed to go to the local dollar store!
Did you order it OHMom?
@OHMomof2 that “trash can”, as mentioned above, was always a side table. That photo comes from a blog in which the author states she bought the table in black on clearance at Target, then painted it blue. Pinterest reposts are often less than accurate 
I believe they really painted it and calling it a trash bin was a honest mistake. The hue and shine are different from the original product. And it does look like more of a wire trash bin than a garden table.
Did you two search the photo/image somehow? Like a word search? Or just know it from other browsing?
@elliebham, Thanks. Photos on the website prove that the table was indeed originally in black, primed in white, and then painted in blue as was claimed. And I would have been mistaken it as a trash bin too, if I saw that on Target’s clearance corner, which is confusingly named as “Dollar Corner”
It looked to me like the person who pinned it and claimed it copied from someone else’s website.
But it isn’t clear to me how pinterest works. I don’t participate.
@alh, understandable. But I would rather give a benefit of doubt when there is a logical explanation. It was a mass produced overstock garden table in at least two colors, and looks like a trash bin. I don’t see a motive of lying for such trivial thing that can be easily discovered.
"The plan is to paint it a deep turquoise blue. I found the perfect color in a spray can at Lowe’s "
This happens all the time to artists. They saw the color without paying attention, and don’t remember seeing it. Yet the colors feels just right. A possible explanation is that both the sun room designer and the blog girl saw Turquoise version somewhere but didn’t remember, found a black version at a dollar store or clearance, and just “knew” that Turquoise color would look very nice.
Or that the blog girl copied the photo as you suspect, but without any intention of claiming that she did it by herself.
Thanks all - yes I’ll grab that for her now @SculptorDad thanks! She can still paint it, she wants grey
Whoops, it’s “not available” when I add it to cart. Still looking…