Kids have lots of … stuff. I found myself in need of something to store his books, but also his assortment of animals. The kid loves stuffed animals. He tends to pick four faves that sleep with him at night. That doesn’t leave much room for him which, strangely enough, is why I think he frequently winds up in bed with mom or dad.

I’d seen some great crates on Pinterest and jumped on the first Craigslist ad I saw. I decided on six crates since he had a longer wall that at the time, he and his cousin had lined his animals against.

I don’t have before pictures but here’s what I did:

• thanked my mom for picking them up for me and hauled them home
• put them in my garage for two weeks
• took a vacuum to them and sucked out all the icky stuff
• used a scrub brush to make sure all icky stuff was out
• vacuumed again
• went to Home Depot and bought two grades of sand paper (220 and 120 grade for initial and between coats), clear interior stain, a drop cloth, a stain brush and a set of white rags
• set out the crates on the drop cloth and sanded each (this took forever)
• started staining and spilled the stain when i picked one up on top of the other
• went back to Home Depot and bought more stain (fail)
• finished staining and sanded again
• decided they were good enough
• let them dry for 24 hours before bringing them in

I really like how they turned out and Connor was really, really excited about them which made me feel like the extra quart of stain was totally worth it.

Franklin gets the best seat.

Animals, books and games. Oh my.

And, of course, we needed room for this guy.