To give everyone an update on our apartment, I’m happy to say that the flooding problem is fixed! A plumber came and installed something (I wish I could be more descriptive, but Eric isn’t here to remind me of the process) that will drain the rain underground, rather than into our apartment. Wonderful.
So now that the flooding problem is solved, we’ve decided to stay here. And that means it’s time to get things done!
We don’t have a pantry to hold any of our food (and we’re limited on cabinet space), so we’ve been trying to come up with a food storage solution. We didn’t want to spend a ton of money on shelves, and we were feeling crafty, so we decided to build shelves with wood crates. We bought crates at Michael’s for $9.99 each (and then got 20% off), and purchased a brown mahogany stain from Lowe’s to make them look a bit more rustic.
After purchasing our craft supplies, we were pretty much starving (we always seem to go to the store around lunch time, which means I am grumpy and miserable the entire time), so we cooked up some bison burgers when we got home. We haven’t had much in the way of meat lately, so we went wild at Kroger and bought ground bison. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a bison burger, but man, they are good. That, along with some grilled corn and kettle cooked BBQ chips, fueled us up for a hot afternoon of staining wood.
We found that the best method for getting the level of stain we liked was to paint a small section at a time and then immediately wipe the section with a cloth.
In the end, I think the crates look really great! And the ten separate spaces allow for a lot of organization (which I love!). Hooray for making this new place feel more like home!
-Ally
Chad and Becca says
Adore. That’s all.
Laura says
Ally, this is a really cute idea. Your shelves look great!