One of the first projects I pinned on Pinterest was a tutorial for seats and storage made from plastic crates. I had forgot about them until a teacher colleague of mine made them and posted them on her blog at Projects at the Pickets. I was so impressed by what she had done, I decided this was a project I just had to do. So thank you, Kathleen, for jump starting this project for me. Kathleen's blog has also inspired me to continue a blog I started two years ago. So here goes....
Because I have very limited space in my classroom, I decided to start with two of the crate storage seats. If I can fit them and determine a use for them, I WILL be making more of them.
I began by selecting two crates. My husband, Rich, cut two seats out of 1/2 in plywood so they would fit on the grove just inside the top of the crate.
I used some left-over fabric I had from making curtains for my classroom last year. For two seats you need about 7/8 yard of 44" wide fabric.
I covered each seat with a few layers of batting. I used a staple gun to staple both the batting and the fabric. I then used a hammer to secure each of the staples by pounding them in.
I then created a handle to lift the seats from the crate by finger pressing an 8 by 2 1/2" piece of fabric and sewing it.
And here you go, an easy inexpensive seat and storage solution for a classroom, a kids playroom or anywhere you can imagine them.
Lessons Learned:
1. Before you purchase the crates be sure to look them over carefully. When I started working on mine I noticed one corner of the green one had a damaged corner. This made a difference when cutting the board.
2. Use as much batting for cushioning as you can but be careful not to wrap too much batting around the edges of the board. This could make the boards not sit on the crate securely.
Check out Kathleen's crate seats at Project at the Picketts. What do you think?
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