Wine Crate end tables.

My wife brought me home some used wine crates once, and I kicked them around a while until I decided what to use them for. The crates vary in size and construction depending on who's wine they held originally. Some just have nailed corners, and others have finger joints. They often have terrible sticky tags pasted on them that take a lot of scraping to remove.

The Winery names are some times burned into the wood with a hot iron, and some are printed on. I give them a lite sanding to smooth out the surface a bit and remove splinters, but I'm careful not to take off the ink. The names and logos are half the appeal of repurposing stuff like this.

The one at the top of the post is an early one. It's legs and trestle bar were some old poplar shelves from a closet I ripped out of the house, the top was new pine. I just did a simple trefoil cut out in the feet for decoration. Medieval looks are always my first inclination.

The fleur de lis cutouts came out nicely, but they were a big pain in the neck. I probably won't do them again unless I'm feeling real patient, or somebody wants to buy one.

The tops come off all of these so you can use the crate for storage. I put a rim of wood around the bottom of the lid so that it stays put unless you lift it off. I think I'll put hinges on one in the future to see how that goes. I think it may require reinforcing the crate wall on some of them, they are often less than a quarter inch thick.

The crates also often have knots in them, so I don't shy away from using similarly knotted wood for the tops and legs. After stain and several coats of a nice satin finish, it all blends together nicely.

This pair is actually a set I sold to a lady who gave them as gifts. Wine people really like this stuff. It tends to come out with a sort of naive, rustic feel to it. I think that's one of my own preferences in furniture design as well. Honesty and simplicity in form and function, no unneeded flourishes.