Desktop Dumpster Update

A few years ago, I bought and painted myself a desktop dumpster. At the time, it perfectly matched my first apartment and studio. As I’ve worked to rebuild a home office and studio inside, I knew it was time to update the dumpster.

It kinda hurt painting over something I had worked hard on, but I knew this was something useful for storage and it wasn’t doing me any good hiding in a closet because it didn’t coordinate anymore.

The first step was spray painting the entire dumpster. I had to make sure to do two solid coats of paint so none of the original red color (or the octopus would shine through). I wasn’t too worried about the inside because I knew it would get scratched with use.

Then, I used a dogwood flower illustration I had made on my iPad and my vinyl cutter to cut out what I wanted on the updated dumpster. I had this black vinyl sticker left over from some other projects so it worked out great to reuse it. The flowers fit nicely along the front of the dumpster.

I thought about trying to wrap the flowers around it more, but the vinyl was a little finicky when putting it on. I smoothed it out as best I could and trimmed parts that were complicated or getting in the way. The center parts of each of the flowers are my favorite.

The dumpster is now proudly on display in my studio space. I used to fill it with sharpies, but now I store some cords for different electronics in it and some odd ball letterpress tools. I thought about moving it more towards my main desk, but need to adjust the “lid” to accommodate some of my taller supplies.

While you can’t buy these dumpsters from the company I purchased from, there are a few knock offs around the web for sale. I love mine because it is so solid and perfectly structured. Maybe in a few years, I’ll get sick of the flowers and pull them off to paint another illustration.