Crate Seats!

Storage is always an issue, or at least it has been in the school where I work. We have one tiny storage room in the school, but we aren't allowed to put any of our own stuff in there. My classroom itself has only a couple shelves and cupboards, but that is mainly used for stuff I use regularly. For years I put fabric around tables like table skirts, and stored all the extra boxes under them. It was a waste of space, and didn't really look good.

Last year, I bought a cube storage unit second hand for $100. It stores all the supplies for our science centres, my seasonal decorations, extra school supplies for my kiddos, novel study units, headphones for computers, extra letters and other bulletin board stuff, and much more! Best of all, it looks good! The whole thing even sits in front of a bulletin board at the back of my room, so that's one less I have to decorate! Win win!

But I still had 7 U-Haul boxes full of my Grade 6 resources and books. Again, I came up with an ingenious (if I do say so myself) plan, and made the boxes into a shelf along my front wall, covered them with fabric, and put paper bins all along them for student notebooks, extra paper, and things like that. Perfect! Until the first time I needed to get something out of one of the boxes, but couldn’t without taking apart my whole shelf. Not such a great plan after all.

This is the temporary version I threw together this year until my crates were ready. 

Plus, the kids always like to sit around the room when they are working, and would often sit on the boxes. Over last year, many of them broke or caved in.

There is "talk" all over teaching blogs lately about “Flexible Seating”, which is something I have always done. I had “standing desks” 12 years ago when I first started teaching, but I didn’t call them that. I just had some kids who preferred to stand, so I raised their desks up. Kids in my class have always chosen tables or desks or carpeted floor… wherever they work best.

So this year… CRATE seats!

I haven’t done a big craft project in a long time, so I was pretty excited about this! I bought 9 milk crates for $5 each from a farmer on Kijiji. I could have bought crates at Home Depot for $6.95 each and I actually wish I had just done that instead, because the ones I bought I had to wash and paint, so it actually probably ended up costing me the same or more. Live and learn.

I washed them with our pressure washer (kind of fun!) and then spray painted most of them black. I ran out of spray paint more than once, so I have some I left yellow. Again, would have been easier to just buy black ones.

Next, I needed wood, foam, and fabric. The wood was the cheapest I could find. $13.99 for a 4x8' board of OSB from Home Depot. At my Home Depot, the first three cuts are free, so I got the nice fella to rip three long 14" pieces for me.

My hubby (with a me only really helping a tiny bit) cut all the rest of the wood for me. For each crate, I needed a 14x14" piece and a 12x12" piece. We actually cut the 12x12 ones just a little bit shorter than that, so they would fit inside the crate without me having to round the corners. My crates do not have an inside lip (some do), hence why the inside piece to hold the top in place. 

For the foam and fabric, I hit my local Wal-Mart. The foam was a mattress cover, and cost me around $20. I bought two, because I wanted two layers for comfort and puffiness. The fabric was kids sheets, the Mainstays Kids Microfibre sheet sets. They had tons of different patterns, and were only $16.94 for a twin set. One set would have been plenty to make a dozen crate seats, but I wanted two different patterns.  

I cut the foam into 14x14" pieces and 16x16" pieces. The smaller piece would be the same size as the wood top, and the larger piece would wrap around the edges. Then I laid one piece of fabric, then the smaller foam piece, followed by the larger foam, and then the wood top. I wanted to sandwich the smaller foam in between the second foam and the wood so it would be thicker in the middle without a line where the smaller foam would be. I put some glue in between each layer so it wouldn't slide around over time. 

Then it was just a matter of stapling the fabric around onto the back of the wood. I started with the corners, and then the sides. It took some trial and error to get it looking decent, but even the first couple looked pretty good. 

Next I centred the 12x12" wood piece over the first part, trapping the fabric ends in between, and screwed it on with 3/4" wood screws. I decided not to glue them together, thinking that if my fabric ever starts to wear out, tear, or get super dirty, I could remove the bottom wood, recover the top with fresh fabric and replace the bottom part. Thinking ahead! 

 Place the finished top part onto a crate, and done!!! Beautiful crate seats, ready to be filled up with all my extra storage materials! The bonus to filling them is that it also makes them more stable, and I don't want my kids to move them all around the room. I will place them around the room where I want them, and they can pick one to sit on. I will be able to move them, but they will be too heavy for my Grade 2s. Perfect!

 All loaded into my vehicle, ready to go to school tomorrow. I will post pics in my Classroom Reveal once I get them filled and placed around the room. So excited!