This isn't anything close to what you sound like you want, but I've been toying around with something like this:
A little back story-when I was a kid, my mom seen something like this (only much larger) in some magizine, and thought it was a good idea. Pretty much the same thing, only 5 gallon buckets instead of coffee cans, and that was where socks and undies and things went. Kinda like a chest-of-drawers, if you got back far enough and closed your eyes. But the scaled-down version works pretty good for small stuff.