DIY chalkboard table with milk crate seats

I am super excited about my latest project!

It started with this:



 a few of these

A little of this

A little of that

And it ended up like this

An awesome chalkboard table with locker crate seats (with storage!!) to match.

Wanna know how I did it? Read on if you want.

So a few months ago I found this coffee table on craigslist and thought it would make a perfect chalk board table for my guys. 

Well it sat in their room collecting dust until a couple weeks ago when I realized it would also make the perfect "kids" table for our upcoming Thanksgiving get together. This realization was just the motivation I needed to get going on this project. So I set out to find some seating. 

I really liked the idea of crate seats that I've seen popping up all over pinterest. So I bought some and realized they were going to be waaaaaay too big for my little table. Bummer! But strolling down the clearance isle at WalMart I found these:

They are locker crates: the same height as milk crates, but half the width. Perfect! Of course I wasn't crazy about the colors (they were the last three they had). I decided to try spray painting them a color more to my liking.

I tried using this krylon spray paint for plastic, but it clogged in like 5 minutes and I couldn't get it to unclog. So I ended up using Rustoleum brand instead. However, while I love the color the durability leaves something to be desired. The paint is already chipping a little bit on the edges. What?! My guess is that this is because the plastic was new and not "weathered." I think in the future I'll go with Krylon since they had some specific instructions for new plastic. But that was the only hiccup in the project.

We {READ: the husband} cut three seats out of a sheet of plywood and sanded down the corners so they'd fit perfectly. We have a little palm sander and this didn't take much time at all. We used 2 inch high density foam for cushioning and some flannel backed vinyl I had on hand to cover them with. Bonus: we can wipe the seats down! The final touch was to add a loop of ribbon to one side in order to pull the seat up. 

{I used this crate seat tutorial to get the general idea)

I sanded the table down and repainted it to match the seats. I used the same spray paint I used on the crates for the legs of the table and then made my own chalkboard paint using this tutorial. I got the paint for FREE at Joann's (love it!). It wasn't quite the right color so I ended up adding some black (3 tsps black to 1/2 cup brown) and it turned out perfect. I can't believe how closely it ended up matching the other paint color. Saweet!

{A before (in the measuring cup) and after (on the paint brush) of the paint colors}

As with all my projects I worried about whether it would be a hit or not. Well I'm very pleased to report that it got broken in over Thanksgiving by my darling nieces.

Overall I'm really happy with how it turned out. While my boys are bit too young for the chalk board part (they are still in the open-mouth-insert-chalk phase) they love to sit at the table on their little seats and "read" a book or have a snack.