A "pantry" for our kitchen

Yay for our new apartment! We have moved everything in (thanks to all those who helped) and I am determined to make our new place homey and looking nice. However, while our new place is much nicer, it is a bit smaller than our old apartment. At the old place, we had this huge pantry-type thing with closed doors, and all of our stuff and junk we didn't use much or didn't know what else to do with we just kind of dumped in there, and it was fine because it had closed doors so you couldn't see the mess behind it. Unfortunately we don't have a place like that in our new apartment. So we needed to buy a pantry for the extra kitchen stuff. And for cheap, because we're poor college students. Also, it couldn't be too tall, because the wall we wanted to put it against has this ugly, lonely shelf (that doesn't match anything else in the kitchen). We searched Wal-mart and Target, found bookshelves and pantries that would work, but I didn't like any of them. They were all between $60-$100, which I know isn't bad, but I could not spend that money for a crap pantry from Wal-mart. So, naturally, I turned to pinterest for ideas. And this is what we came up with!

First, crates from JoAnns. We bought nine but ended up only using eight.

 Next, we set up shop, taping garbage bags to the floor. We sanded each crate, and then vacuumed up the sawdust. One thing I loved about this project is I actually got to help do it. Normally when we do crafty things, I show Marshall what I want and he'll do it. He's got the artistic skill. I have none of that skill whatsoever.

 After sanding, we stained the crates. We already had the stain and supplies on hand since Marshall has more woodworking plans.

 I tried not to, but I splatter some stain on my legs. Lovely little brown spots all over, it looked like I had a disease. But they came off with some Dove soap and scrubbing.

 We set the crates outside to dry overnight. I'm sure other people outside the complex wondered who their new weird neighbors were with the crates outside their door. The next day, we decided we wanted to stencil it to make it more crate-ish style. We debated doing real companies, but I thought this would be more fun. Marshall created the stencil, and then we painted it on the sides of the crates

 Then we stacked them...

 And put in our stuff! We love how they turned out! I'm thinking of getting burlap sacks to put the potatoes and the pancake mix and stuff in to make it look better.

 Also, I have to figure out what to do with this random shelf and the stuff on top!

Out with the old, in with the new

We are so excited because we get to move out of our old, ghetto-looking apartment and into a nice, newish, close-to-campus apartment! Yee-haw. Our old apartment wasn't that bad, looking back on it, but we still don't want to go back. Here's the pics of the old place:

This is the outside of our old apartment complex. Doesn't it look like a ghetto old motel? You should see it at night, with the yellow flood lights. It looks even worse. hehe :)

Living room. Lovely carpet, right? Especially those stains...(they were there when we moved in)

Kitchen. It looks nice in the picture, after being scrubbed shiny clean! (thank you to momma)

Teeny bathroom with no counter space or drawers!

 So, I have to tell a quick story about cleaning the tub because I can't get over this. I wish I had a before picture, but just picture a tube with hard water stains around the drain area, the yellowish ring and grayish stains. Sounds nice, right? It was like that when we moved in. And for our cleaning check out, I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and it was not looking any better. So I just crossed my fingers and hoped it would have to do! But then the cleaning check out lady saw it and told me it wasn't good enough! I was disheartened. I told her I had tried everything I could think of and spent way too much time on this stupid tub. And then she tells me that toilet bowl cleaner (brand called Surprise I think?) and a magic eraser takes it right off. What the heck?! Really, who on earth came up with that combination and decided to use it on the tub? The cleaner smells awful (similar to a stinky toilet smell) but does the trick. So, if your tub has hard water stains, this will get it off! Even if it is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Here's the proof:

Pictures of our new place to come!