Scavenger Chic

Upcycled Wine Crate, DIY Storage Box

• By Joan
• February 24, 2021
• 5 Comments

Upcycled Wine Crate, DIY Storage Box

Last week I showed you my son’s bathroom. He’s been living in his home for just over 2 years.  When he moved into his home, a large room in his basement had been converted to a wine cellar.  The previous owner had apparently done a lot of travelling and he was a big collector of wine in those travels.

The wine room was sorta a selling point for the home.  After all, who has a wine room in their basement and one that can hold a several thousand bottles of wine? How cool is that?

As for practical use, it wasn’t. The new homeowners never really have more than a couple bottles of wine in their house at a time.  If they need a bottle of wine, they go out and buy a bottle of wine. Weird, right?

Anyway, it didn’t take long for the new homeowners to take down the wine racks and these wine crate pieces that were stuck on the walls.  

The room now holds an office and maybe someday a workout room and a bathroom…it was a large room.

I was lucky to be on the receiving end of a stack of these printed crates pieces.

Gift Card Box

A couple of the wine crates became gift card boxes back in 2019.  If you go back to that post, you can also see a picture of the crates on the wall and some of the wine racks in place.

Today, I’m making another box, but one more for serving, crafts or storage.

Cut your wine crate boxes.  My base is 12 x 7 1/4″.   Four pieces 5 x 5 1/4″, these will be the sides and inside dividers.  And two pieces 5 x 11 1/2″.  I eventually added 2 more pieces, 5 x 2 1/2″ to divide my boxes into even smaller areas.

Hindsight is always 20/20, so looking back, I certainly didn’t need all the specially marked wine crates for the sides, the base or the interior pieces, just for the front and back.  You just can’t see all the logos.  So if you choose, just use scrap wood for those pieces, or my all time favorite, pallet wood.

For the front of your box, choose your wine crate with the deepest embossed design.

Wine crate boxes always come with these grooves in the wood where the wood dividers for the wine bottles would have gone.

For this project, I didn’t want those grooves so I filled them in with a strip of wood.  This is another reason to use that scrap wood instead of the wine crate.

Nothing is attached yet, just seeing if I need to do any more cuts.  I can see the strips of wood where I patched my crates, those will definitely have to be filled with wood putty.

It was at this point that I decided to put the smaller dividers in.  Make as many cubbies as you like to fit your junk.

Sand all your pieces well, including the wood putty and splintery edges.  I also sanded off a lot of the yellow/orange finish of the box until I was down to unfinished wood.

I began by painting the wine crate box with a watered down taupe gray, painting the pieces before attaching so I could get into all the nooks and crannies. Wipe off the excess paint so you can see the wine crate logo.

I used a pneumatic nail gun to attach all  the pieces.  If you don’t have a nail gun, use a hammer and finish nails.

It was only at this point that I decided my center cubby needed a lid.  The larger lid part was cut from scrap piece of pallet wood (6″x5″).  The smaller, lighter piece of wood, was cut from 1/4″ plywood (4 1/4 x 5″). The smaller piece of wood will sit inside the cubby and prevent the lid from slipping off.

The 2 lid pieces were glued and clamped together.  You might not need quite so many clamps, my pallet wood was a little warped.

I attached a wooden knob from an old dresser.

The wine crate logo didn’t stand out quite as much as I would have liked, so out came the black chalk paint.  I watered the paint down, got into all the grooves and quickly wiped away the excess before it dried.

The wine logo stood out a little more with the addition of the black paint, but I did end up adding an additional layer of vintage wax.  All the layers of paint and wax make  the box seem genuinely aged.  Keep adding paint and or wax until you like your final product.

When the wax is dry, buff with fine steel wool.

Use your box for serving, if you are ever allowed to have people over again.

Or to store craft or desk supplies.

I do have a weakness for wooden boxes.

Until next time, go drink a case of wine and stay inspired. 😆 

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