Book Crate

Yesterday I was so bored.  It was a weird feeling being bored.  The girls both had school and normally I would have tons of things to do.  But I didn’t have anything to shop for, the house was fairly clean and I had no projects to do.  So I cleaned the garage.  Then I went and picked up more pallet wood at my brother’s.  But I still didn’t have a project in mind.  Well I do need to build a doghouse, but I didn’t get enough wood for that.  Then Ana White posted this project on her facebook page.

Chalkboard Produce Crate

Perfect!  I went right out to the garage and whipped it up.  Using the wood I had and tools I have.  I don’t have a big enough drill bit to make the handles cut out.  I would love to do rope handles, but I used what I had.

Most of it was built with pallet wood, but I also used some 1x2s and 1/4″ mdf for the bottom and chalkboards (there’s another one on the back).

Don’t let the books fool you.  Those are the bigger kids books we have.  This crate is actually pretty good sized.

And since it’s chalkboard, I can make it say whatever!

I used coffee to stain it.  I plan on sharing more on that next week.

Fancy Side Table

This is another project straight from my pinterest boards.   I’ve been wanting to make this table for over a year.

Source: Frosted Bakeshop

There were no plans to work from, and I used only the wood that I already had.  So mine was a smaller scale table.  But that was good since I can now learn from my mistakes if I ever want to make a bigger table like this.

So I started out by drawing one leg in the shape that looked good on a 1×6.  Then cut it out.  Then made 2 more exactly like it.

For the forth leg, I had to make it 1/2 wider.  So I had to use some wide store bought wood that I had.  Then attached the wider leg to another like this using pocket holes.

Then pocket holed the other 2 legs.

Next I made a round table top.

Then screwed it all together and puttied all the pocket holes.

As soon as I put it together I said “Ah man, that looks bad.”  The legs are really fat and lumpy looking.  But to make them smaller and thinner the wood would have broke.  So a larger table would look nicer with this width of legs.  But I would have to actually buy wider wood. And this was using free pallet wood.

I painted it yellow and gave it to Delilah for a side table for her toddler bed.

New Porch Bench

A couple years ago when I got my first pallet, I made a very rustic pallet bench.  Keeping most of the pallet intact, I just cut it in half and used the extra wood for legs.  Seriously simple.

Then I moved it to the porch and made a cushion.

Surprisingly, I still get lots of visitors to my blog (through pinterest) just because of this little bench.  Which I find amusing.  I had no idea it would be so popular.  But re-purposing pallets are the “in thing” right now, so I’m not surprised people like it.

Then a few months ago I made a new bench for our bedroom but ended up not liking it there.  So I replaced the old one on the porch.  I didn’t use any plans for this, just made it up.

It has an shelf on the bottom made of two 2x2s to hold a crate full of gardening things, and the B-Fly box.

The old bench went to the side of the house.  This is one the the best places to sit in the winter.  No wind and sunny.  If I was a cat this is where I would nap.