DIY vintage crate storage

Hey hey! I’ve got a very, simple, quick project to share today – one I’m pretty smitten with. It has all of my loves –  it was inexpensive, easy and cauuute!

And it’s a knock-off of sorts, so that’s an extra bonus. :)

A few weeks ago I saw these cute crates in the Serena & Lily catalog and knew I could DIY them:

 

I wanted to make some myself because, well, these are CRAZY expensive. This (small) size is $88 plus shipping. YOWZA. My plan was to make them from scratch with wood and stencils. I wanted to have a few in the basement for storage.

Well I was at one of my VERY favorite antique spots today, Midland Arts and Antiques (you can see more about this wondrous place here and here) and found the perfect vintage crate:

And I immediately knew what I was going to do with it.

I loved that the crate was solid, clean, and had some really cool details:

It is so old and worn the wood is super soft – no rough spots or splinters (which I watch out for when the Bub will be using something).

Don’t you love the old Good Housekeeping logo? How cool is that?

This little transformation took about 20 minutes – I had some small castors that I never used for another project, so I screwed those on and then put a quick coat of poly on the whole thing, inside and out:

I used a satin so it’s not shiny, but it brought out the tones in the wood. I poly’d it because you never know what’s been in an old crate, and this both protects the wood and helps to protect us from anything that has been inside of it. :)

(I also wiped the whole thing down with cleaning wipes before I started.)

It was SO simple, and I just absolutely love it!:

I wanted to use one of the rolling crates for all of the gaming stuff, and this is perfect!:

There’s plenty of room left for more. Like we need more. Gah.

The awesome part is my version is bigger than the Serena and Lily crate (mine is 22” by 12” by 10” tall) and was only $20. (For the crate – I had everything else. Those little wheels are about a buck each at the hardware store.) That’s a savings of $70, and mine is BIGGER. And BETTER.

OK, that’s subjective, but whatever.

My favorite part? The good luck logo on the side:

Considering it holds the game stuff, I thought that was pretty cute. :)

I love when a project comes together so easily and better than the inspiration! SO FUN.

Have you DIY’d a good knock-off lately? Feel free to share a link in the comments!

Hope you have a fantastic weekend!