Believe it or not, the barter with Amanda, my trainer, IS STILL GOING ON! Even though the last few months have been tough (it’s SO hard to work out and eat right while traveling, isn’t it?) I have managed to keep off the inches I lost and I still feel great, and now that I’m home, we are back to our regular 3 days/week workout regimen and I hope to get even closer to my health goals. AND her apartment is almost finished. The latest update is a storage solution. If you have been following along the story you know that Amanda’s home is a tiny little studio apartment. And the shelves that she had were fine, but certainly not rad. She also needed more space to put stuff, and I wanted to utilize the height of the walls more. This is what the shelves looked liked before:
It doesn’t exactly make my heart go pitter-patter. So we wanted something big and substantial–but we wanted something big and substantial on a super friendly budget (like under $1000)–which, unless you just go for Ikea, is no easy task. And then I remembered this blog post of mine from last year and got excited. All I needed was to find the crates. And then, after only a few minutes of research (I love you Craigslist) I discovered The Crate People. The only vintage crate wholesaler in the who US apparently, who, just so happen to offer free delivery in the LA area. Boom. It was meant to be. I ordered twenty crates, he delivered them a week later and I met my homie Dabito there with a tape measure, hammer and nails, a drill and a few small anchors and L brackets. About an hour later we had this:
(The crates have to be cleaned–they come straight from the farms and some of them have been sitting there for 100 years!) And then we messed around with the configuration until we found something we fancied. Two hours later we had this:
And in about four hours we had built the entire thing, hammered all the pieces together, anchored it to the wall and styled it up! Fun, easy, quick and cheap.
And so dang cute, yes? I am so happy with how it came out. And Amanda digs it too. :) Now to work on the storage area I’ve accumulated in my upper thigh area :P
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Sidenote: Have you seen I’ve finally got onto Facebook? I know. I had to jump into the lake to catch up to the boat…but I’ll have all kinds of original content over there so check it out and like me and yadayadayada blablabla. You know the drill. Have a kickass weekend, friends!
Hi there
Stumbled on your blog and looking forward to catching up with it…love this shelving! I’m based in UK and haven’t seen this style of crate before which doesn’t have the wood triangles in the corners….think your arrangement looks really slick.
I wrote a post a while ago on creating a storage wall…we have yet to do anything about it, apparently my husband wants to wait for his shed to be operational so he can start playing with ideas. I may put yours in front if him….!
http://pebbledashedpad.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/pondering-possibilities-wk-20-day-five/
Looking forward to reading rest of your blog
Melanie x
Love it! I knew there was a reason I wanted to collect wooden crates…
I’m not especially handy, so am really curious about how many anchors you used per section and where you put the nails to attach the crates to each other. Thanks!
Ha! Yes to be honest I’m not SUPER handy either. We put small nails in the bottom four corners of each crate. We also put small nails in th corners on the sides, going into the crate that’s next to it. We used two wall anchors on either side holding each piece to the wall (it’s in three pieces). and we used little metal plated with holes in them and a couple of small screws to attache the corner piece to the other two pieces. hope that helps!
Verrrry cool!! The before and after says it all.
LOVE THIS! I love how it curves around the corner. her place is looking great.
I love it! I’m curious–did you get the tall grape crates? What did you use to clean them?
Hey! We got the apple crated and wiped them down with damp rags and those disposable disinfecting wipes.
Hello! I am moving and I dig this idea for my stuff. Did this go in a living room? and how much were the boxes (each)?
I live near the LA border, can I pick them up myself?
Thanks for sharing this creative idea. :)
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