Wooden Cheese Crate {tutorial}

After playing around with different ways of styling these corner shelves that I built in my dining room and kitchen area I have finally found a way that I LOVE! Triangle shaped shelves can be tricky to style I have found. I really wanted a vintage wooden crate somewhere in my kitchen so I decided to make a triangle shaped one. It turned out better than I had hoped and was easier than I thought.

Since the crate was going to be up on a shelf and you wouldn’t see the joints, I decided to go the easy route and only cut two ends at a 45 degree angle. If this were a piece of furniture or something you would see the corners on, I would have figured out the angles and done mitered cuts on all corners.

To make a bottom simply set the triangle on a piece of wood and trace the inside with a jigsaw and nail and glue it into place.

After gluing and nailing it together I sanded it smooth. I wiped off the dust and then stained it using Golden Oak from Minwax. I wanted it to be a lighter but warm color.

It looked great just stained and I could have left it as is, but I really wanted that vintage-y feel of an old crate.

When looking at examples of old crates online the main colors of the stamped lettering seemed to be blue, black, and red. I went with red and black and I luckily had those colors of stain on hand.

I cut a stencil out of vinyl using my Silhouette cutting machine.

Using a foam brush I gently dabbed the stain on and then used a paper towel to remove the excess.

Once it dried I lightly sanded it with 22o grit sand paper to get that aged look. I like to set pots inside of crate rather than plant them in the crate itself. That way I can easily take out one pot at a time to use the herbs or to water as needed.