A few weeks ago I was rambling on to my boyfriend about an idea I had to make a bookcase out of wooden crates and was disappointed that I wasn’t able to find any at Home Depot. Truthfully, the lumber section terrifies me. It’s so intimidating with all those big beams and heavy boards. Plus, I look ridiculously out of place. Everyone I walk by looks at me as if to say ‘what could she possibly need in the lumber section’. It’s like the free weights area at the gym all over again.
Long story short, I left without any crates. A couple of days later, my boyfriend scored me some crates. Free crates! These aren’t the same kind of crates I was originally looking for…they’re produce crates (in case the fresh beans stamp didn’t already give that away). They’re not the sturdiest of structures so I wasn’t going to try to make a bookcase out of them.
But I do love me some pretty storage solutions…
I’ve also been dying to work with chalk paint! Covers well, distresses beautifully, and dries quickly…I don’t see the downside. And obviously I’m going to attempt the DIY version first. There’s a couple variations of DIY chalkpaint recipes around, but I went with this one. The paint is a super pale shade of pink called ‘French Heirloom’ by Behr.
- 1/2 cup of Plaster of Paris
- 1/2 cup of hot water
- 1 cup latex paint
Combine hot water with Plaster of Paris, mix well. Combine mixture with paint. The mixture is a little waterier than regular paint. Did I mention it dries really fast? It felt completely dry within 20 minutes or so. I’m usually very impatient with paint, so this was definitely a plus.
First, I tried to fix up the crate a bit using some nails and a glue gun. It needed quite a bit of sanding since it’s not exactly a good quality wood and had splinters sticking up everywhere.
Two coats of chalk paint, and some sanding over the paint to distress it a bit, and my crate is complete! I love how rustic it looks! I was thinking of keeping it in the living room and using it to store blankets.
The great news is that Jack likes it too! I actually couldn’t get him to leave the frame. Probably because I stuffed his blanket into the crate to photograph it, and he maybe thought it was a new bed.
I ended up moving the crate to photograph it alone. Can’t you totally picture this in a Pottery Barn catalog? The paint looks almost white but has a very subtle pink tint to it. It would look perfect in the living room which has lilac walls.
In case you didn’t know, I also enjoy making throw pillows. The one in the photo was actually a solid ivory fabric that I had painted using a stencil and some craft paint. I’m considering including this in a future post!
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