Wine crate end table with legs.

This is the first wine crate end table that I built. I did this one with four tapered pencil post legs before I decided the renaissance trestle style worked better for the wine crates.
The legs are reclaimed fir, sawed down from old 2x4s with nail holes and oxidation stains left in, I like them better that way.
The stain is very light, Minwax Ipswitch pine. It hardly darkened the wood at all. I tend to like darker stains, but I thought I'd give this one a try. The table was meant for a room with a dark wood floor and brown walls and I figured a light colored piece of furniture would help brighten the room.

The legs on this table bolt on and are removable. The pieces of the apron are screwed and glued to the plate that the crate sits on. a corner brace connects with each part of the apron and a threaded bolt pulls the leg tightly into a triangle formed from the aprons and the brace.

I learned this design for attaching legs when I was working for an Amish furniture dealer. The Amish used this design on all the leg tables they made, from end tables to twenty seat dining tables and I think it's the strongest leg joint you can have. A little piece like the wine crate end only needs a single bolt in the corner, but bigger legs use two or three.

As the table ages, or due to temperature and humidity variations, the wood may shrink or expand, but this joint requires only a quarter turn on the nuts to keep it snugged up tight.

The top comes off to access the crate for storage, and this one is currently full of photo albums, you know, physical pictures, from before we let them pile up on the hard drive unseen.

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.