Wooden Crates as Toy Storage

Well hello there! It’s the last day of kindergarten for Nickerbean 1 and summer starts at noon. I’m excited and kind of nervous but I know it will be a sweet summer with my pumpkins.

This week, it’s back to the newest, coolest room in our house. Today I want to show you how I customized the wooden crates I used as storage in the playroom. This post is sponsored by Crates and Pallet.  I’m so thankful for the
opportunity to work with them and as always, all opinions are my own.
Thank you for supporting brands that support House Homemade.

*this post contains affiliate links.* 

See those wood crates in the built ins? I was so happy to get these medium crates for the playroom. I love them because it’s great to have multiples of one kind of storage… That makes my eyeballs happy. And I also love them because we used to have the canvas cubes for storage and it did NOT make my eyeballs happy every time our girls, for some reason, chose to empty them and crush them…Why? Why, people?!  So, let’s review. Lots of sturdy wood storage– that can’t be crushed. Score!

First, I stained them my favorite stain color. Like, everything that I’ve stained for our house is this color. It’s the perfect warm brown. I’m slowly trying to convince my handsome man to let me stain the dining room table this shade. It’s so good.

I stained the inside and outside using a rag (or old sock) and then a foam brush for the tight inside corners or the spaces in between the slats. Then left them outside to dry.

Knowing that they would be stained and then be stored on white bookshelves.. and handled by kids, I lined the bottoms of each bin with with strip of brown felt I got from the fabric store. I just used hot glue and stuck them to every other slat. This way when they drag or slide the crates, the white shelves are protected.

This is a great idea for any basket that’s on the ground or inside shelving. I have felt on the bottom of plant baskets and on the baskets inside our built ins in the kitchen. It’s just a great way to protect the basket and the surface it’s on.

I know these crates have many wide slats for small toys to fall through. I thought about buying cheap, laminated place mats to line the bottom of each crate. It turned out that the toys we stored in them weren’t small enough to slip through.

There are a couple crates with stuffed animals, one with barbies, another with baby dolls. While we’re talking about storage, let me just say, we got rid of so many toys through the process of this makeover. Kids do not need as much stuff as they seem to accumulate. None of us need as much stuff as we accumulate. It feels so good and freeing to donate things and get them out of the house. It sounds cool to have a garage sale and to make a few extra dollars on the things we get rid of but at least for me, that means holding on the things until we have enough to sell and I’m just not willing to have that much clutter in our house and in my brain. So, to Goodwill it goes! [and back comes furniture to complete the Goodwill circle of life – Editor]

Crates and Pallet offers different sized crates available at Home Depot. My sweet husband offered to cut these down so they were flush with the bookcases but frankly, I wasn’t willing to lose those extra inches of storage.

They’re really pretty and are a great contrast from the white so I don’t mind seeing a little more of them.

Another thing I did that makes me love them even more.. I made some tassels because almost everything in a house (and in life) can be made better with a tassel…It’s a fact. Learn how I make them here. I stapled them onto the inside of the crate then covered the staple in hot glue just to make it a little more kid friendly.

Both staples and hot glue can be removed if I ever want to use these in another room…likely… or decide I don’t like tassels….not likely.

I love the way they turned out. I love the way they will stand up the wear and tear and the way they tie in wood tones from the rest of the house. They are a beautiful addition to the room. So much better than trampled canvas cubes.

Thank you to Crates and Pallet for providing us with storage for the playroom. I just love them and know we’ll use them for years to come!

Thanks for reading, friends!

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