Home / DIY Projects / Wooden Crate Decorating Ideas for Your Home
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These wooden crate decorating ideas are perfect for upgrading your home on a budget! Get DIY projects like furniture, organization, shelving, and more.
Are you looking for an inexpensive way to make a piece of furniture? How about a budget friendly project for a special place in your home? I’ve got something you’re going to be excited about, my friends: wooden crate decorating ideas.
With their rustic charm and beautiful simplicity, crates are an easy solution to any room’s need for décor. The possibilities are endless: use them as shelves or bedside tables; display books on them in the living room; paint them with bright colors or leave natural for a chic look; anything goes!
Get creative and let this blog post be your guide to decorating your stylish home. Before we jump into the ideas, I wanted to talk a little bit about crates. If you want to skip this section and see the 35 DIY projects, go ahead and scroll down.
DIY Projects with Crates
Decorating a wood crate is easy, but you might have a few questions about where to get them, how to prepare them, and what paint to use. I address all three things below.
Finding Crates
Wooden crates are much more readily available than you might think! They’re at craft stores, although typically in limited sizes. Home Depot has them. There are also great sites like Crates & Pallet that offer them in a ton of sizes.
In addition, you’ll find they are often readily available at flea markets, produce markets (ask if they will give you any), and sometimes at natural foods stores. Keep your eyes out on your local Facebook marketplace or ask on Nextdoor as well.
Preparing Your Surface
A wood crate is exactly that – wood! Most of the time it’s unfinished. If your crate is old, you can clean it with some paper towels and water and let it dry. Basically you’re just trying to remove all the dust.
The next step would be to make sure that all the nails and/or staples are secure, and there are no major splinters coming from your crate. That includes new crates as well.
If you see any portion of your crate that is lose, use wood glue to secure it. You can also sand the surface with a medium grit sandpaper to remove any splinters or rough surface. Brush away any dust. Now paint and Mod Podge will stick nicely to the wood.
Paints to Use
You can use just about any type of paint on your crate surface, but you’re probably going to want to stick to either chalk paint, stain, or craft paint.
If the wood isn’t absorbing the paint, it might be treated and you might need to sand it. Most acrylic products will work on wood. I personally like FolkArt chalk paint and Delta multi-surface paint for my projects.
Are you ready to see the wooden crate decorating ideas? Scroll down to get the list!
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Two-Tier Wood Produce Stand
You can buy expensive wooden bins that look like this, but I think that using the crates gives it more character, don't you?
Do you need a homeschool desk or a desk for working from home? Build this simple desk from wooden crates! This DIY desk is cheap to build and has storage for school supplies and books.
This is one of my favorite wooden crate decorating ideas, because it's a piece of furniture for under $50! Tara used coupons at Michaels to get four wooden crates and then turned them into a coffee table. Bonus – it's on wheels.
Here’s a fun way to store and display Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars – a DIY wooden crate parking garage! It's easy to make this storage unit with a wood crate and some mailing tubes.
Carrie found a discarded, dusty old wooden crate at an antique mall, and her mind immediately turned it into a side table! It's a great idea for a vintage find, but you could use a new crate as well.
Monica describes her project perfectly: "get the high-end look of built-ins without building a thing! It takes quite a few wooden crates for this decorating DIY, but the results are impressive.
Utilize the very bottom of your pantry by painting and decorating some wooden crates! Add wheels for movable storage you can use to hold a variety of loose food items.
It never occurred to me to build wood lockers out of crates, but this is a perfect DIY decorating idea when you can't find exactly what you're looking for! This project uses basic tools and materials.
The nice thing about this crate decorating idea is that it's meant to look distressed – so you don't need to be perfect in your paint or Mod Podge application! It's very easy to do and you can use it to store anything.
With only a few minutes and a few supplies, you can make your own wood crate rolling cart. The whole project took Gina 20 minutes, and she was lucky enough to find her crates at a local produce market (great idea!).
Want to add more seating to your outdoor space? You can do that with a farmhouse bench that has an option for additional storage. You'll use wooden crates underneath!
Right now my iron sits on a wire shelf in the laundry room and dumps over all the time! I love this solution from Linda – give the ironing supplies their own cubby with a wood crate.
What did Christina do when challenged to use wood crates in a project? She came up with this bench decorating idea for her porch! You could use it in a covered area outside or anywhere inside (like a kids' room).
If you're a plant lady or dude, you're going to love this plant holder made from a wooden crate. I love the usage of gold leaf . . . and it holds a lot more beyond just plants.
I don’t know about you, but I am always on the hunt for more storage baskets – there's never enough organization options around the house. Sara and Melissa took an unfinished wood crate and modernized it a bit for any room of the house.
While there are no instructions for these wood crate light shades, it looks like the insides are painted . . . and a hole is drilled on top. I think these would look great in a farmhouse kitchen!
This is a perfect home decor piece for an office or home schooling area, made with both large and small wooden crates as well as some pine boards. Jaime gives you the complete tutorial to make one of your own.
This is the easiest DIY you'll ever do! You can simply stack wooden crates to make a bookshelf, or if it'll be in a kids' room you can anchor it to the wall. Either way – it's simple!
If you're lucky enough to find a wood crate for free, clean it up, stencil it, and add some key hooks – then you have a unique shelf for holding your items when you walk in the front door.
Amber's DIY picnic basket is genius! She turned the base into a "basket," and a crate lid into a table with foldable legs. When not in use, it doubles as decor.
Sometimes you just need to put your feet up! Learn how to make an ottoman out of a crate and then give it a vintage feel. You can also put it on wheels!
If you like inexpensive DIY wooden crate ideas, you're going to love this nightstand made from three wine crates! Jacquelyn got them for $1 each and all she did was add some stain.
While there are no instructions for this wall storage, Aimee screwed the crates directly into the wall and then added baskets from Michaels. It's really easy and I love the results!
Sometimes it's nice to have a rolling display for your heavier plants! This is perfect to use for keeping your plants in a certain area and rolling around when needed.
Painted argyle is my love language! And it looks fantastic painted on the sides of this decorative wood crate. This is one of those project ideas that is perfect for your fall decor or a centerpiece.
