Packing crate table

My mom works for a shipping company, and they frequently have wooden crates to be discarded or given away. We have a big blue crate that we use for a sandbox, and a smaller one for a firewood box. About five years ago she gave me a crate that I think was intended to use as a planter on the patio; however, it went into the garage and became a junk-gatherer for awhile before it got dumped outside in the woodshed.

Every once in awhile I would think about what to do with that crate - it bothered me to have it just sitting there unused. In the meanwhile, I'd been pondering what to do with our porch area, and I'd acquired a wooden dining chair with the intention to paint it and put it out there. Then just the other day Papi came home with a wood rocking chair he found at an antique store, and we put that out on the porch too. It was clear we needed something else though, and that crate came to mind.

Last weekend I primed it with white primer, gave it a few coats of light green paint, and used some chalkboard spray paint that I had on hand from another project. It only took a few hours including drying time, and it was a fun project to do with Gabi. I had to accept the imperfections that can come from having a 3-year-old assistant, but that's what life's all about! Here's the finished table:

I'm so psyched about it - I think it turned out really well and I'm excited to be able to write little messages depending what's going on that day. It also feels great to have finally found a use for that crate that was haunting me for the past five years!

Spring Cleaning

Never mind that its summer, lately I've been in a serious nesting mood. The other day I decided to tackle one of our house's biggest disaster zones - the pantry. Now how a little closet like this one can become such a mess is kind of amazing, but here it is:


Pantry - Before

It starts out organized, and somehow over time things just get shoved back in any old way, and before long its a jumbled mess of opened boxes, bags of stale chips, spilled dry pasta, and god knows what else. I try to keep up the system, but frankly its three against one here, so its hard going. Instead, every so often I end up doing a complete clean-out.