Wooden crates are super useful on the homestead but really expensive to buy, especially in fall when they start appearing as decor for the season. Learn how to build an easy rustic crate step by step in this post to corral your stuff and get your homestead organized for winter.
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Rustic Crates Are The Best
You can never have enough storage crates on the homestead. I’m serious! They work for storing apples, squashes, zucchini wine, mason jars of preserves or all of that tomato sauce, yarn, blankets, seasonal beers and a bunch of other things which I’m sure you are thinking of right now! As I write this post, it’s fall and every time I walk into the craft store there is some fancy display with rustic wooden crates and bales of straw at some ridiculous price.
My husband does a lot of woodworking and we seem to come into free wood from time to time or have off cuts left from projects like building the beehives so our rustic crates were a fraction of the cost of the dinky ones at the craft store and we were able to make them any size we wanted or needed and they took less than an hour to build.
Building Wooden Rustic Crates
SAFETY FIRST guys and girls! We use power tools in this build so be sure you know how to operate them correctly and safely. Use protective equipment when working and be sure to keep loose clothing, jewelry, hair and anything else not the wood being cut away from the saw blades.
We used leftover rope and scrap wood for this project but you can use some 1/4 inch plywood and rip down a 2 x 4 to the desired thickness for the slats. Ripping the 2 x 4 to 3/4 inch long slats will make a sturdy crate.
Tools You Will Need For This Project
- Tape Measure
- Drill
and a drill bit big enough for the rope (a 3/8 bit worked for our rope)
- Radial arm saw or chop saw
- Table saw
- Pencil
- Finish nailer/brad gun
and 1 1/4 staples or a hammer and finishing nails
- Wood glue
and a drill bit big enough for the rope (a 3/8 bit worked for our rope)
Making The Crate Ends
Grab your plywood and measure out the size of the ends which you would like. Mark up the plywood and cut out the pieces with the chop saw.
Use a drill to make holes for the rope, cut the rope to the length you need it to be for your handles.
Poke the rope though the holes and tie a knot to make the handles. You can also pick up some cheap handles at a thrift store like the Habitat For Humanity Restore.
Making The Crate
We had some scrap left over from helping a friend make a table from some old floor boards so we used those. If you are using 2 x 4 then, use a table saw to rip the 2 x 4 down to the right thickness.
Once you have ripped your slats down, it is time to cut them to length. We used our vintage radial arm saw that we picked up at the thrift store to cut them down to side but you can use a chop saw
Position your slats on the plywood ends and mark them so you know where they are to be fixed down. Mark both pieces of plywood up so that the slats are even.
Secure the plywood end in a vice or with a trusted helper to hold it in place. Put a dab of wood glue
Line up the slats to the marks you made on the other end piece and glue and staple or glue and nail to the side. Attach the slats to the base of your crate using the same glue and staple technique.
Once the glue is dry you can use your new crate to store whatever you need it to or enjoy it as a decorative piece for your porch or yard this fall. We used our for our squash harvest. What will you use your rustic crate for?
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As remuneration for running this blog, this post contains affiliate links. Misfit Gardening is a participant in Affiliate or Associate’s programs. An affiliate advertising program is designed to provide a means for this website/blog to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to websites offering products described in the blog post. It does not cost you the Reader anything extra. See Disclosures, Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy for more information.
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