Smid ♡’s details: Orange shoe crates

I went in for a strep test about a week ago when both of my kids were diagnosed with strep and I walked out with pneumonia. How does that happen?

Apparently, it’s hard to kick pneumonia, if you don’t really rest. Stewart’s making me lie around all day. Normally, that’s not a bad thing except for three things:
1. I’m being told to do it.
2. That’s all I’ve been doing for the last 7 days.
3. I’ve got to do stuff…serious stuff for this launch party.

Anyway, the weekend before I found out I was sick with walking pneumonia, I was busy channeling my inner design sponge…my deep, deep, inner design sponge.

After designing the kids closet, I still had plans to add some finishing details. These plans were in my original drawing but didn’t get done all at once; 1. a cool vintage light, 2. curtains to give some sense of separation from the room, and 3. shoe crates on industrial wheels for both sides of the closet.

I learned about the shoe crate idea recently, in the Design Sponge book. I think it’s a great idea to help keep the messy shoes (i.e. flip flops, slippers, crocs – ew!) off the floor and the shelves more organized.

I picked up two crates for $5 each at the Rose Bowl Flea Market a few weekends ago. You do not need to pay a lot for these. Little boutiques or antique stores will mark these things up to as much as 60 bucks ($60) but, if your patient or psychotic like me, you can find them super cheap.

I love it because one of them was a crate that housed ammunition at some point, making it a bit tougher looking and definitely is perfect for my little guy’s side of the closet.

I have a color palette in mind for my kid’s room, where these crates will live. I wanted to continue to focus on pulling everything together. I just felt I needed a splash of fire burnt orange or deep orange in the room. They only sold one color orange spray paint at my local hardware stores – bright orange. I bought it anyway and just decided to go easy on the application.

I sprayed lightly and massaged the paint into the crate with a rough cloth. I think it turned out nice. I’m diggin’ it, actually. Now my kids can roll these in and out to grab shoes and it keeps them off the floor! I scored. I now have the deep orange color in the room. Another (although small) step for Project SMID. What do you think?

Still in bed!

-SMID