Average But Inspired

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Turn a Crate into a Rolling Firewood Caddy

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Wooden crates are everywhere: the craft store, home improvement stores, and even big box stores!  They’re super accessible, and because of that, perfect for a wide variety of DIY projects.  Today I’ll show you how to turn a crate into a rolling firewood caddy!  Love this! It's so easy to make a rolling firewood caddy with a wood crate. Learn how to customize a crate for looks and function. It's a great piece of fireplace decor!

DIY rolling firewood caddy made from an unfinished crate available at Michaels.

I am in love with my little firewood caddy.  It has opened up my entire fireplace (I used to have a fireplace screen covering the firebox), and added a personal touch to my living room.

DIY rolling firewood caddy made from an unfinished crate available at Michaels.

It was also really, really easy to put together.  Score!

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I started with a plain wooden crate.  (Although I linked to one online, if you get a 40% off coupon for Michaels, you can get them much cheaper there.)   

Unfinished crate.
Next, I sanded the crate’s rough spots and then primed the entire thing with a brown spray primer that looks red in this photo.  I swear it’s not red.
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Once the primer dried, I painted the crate with the Americana Decor chalky finish paint that I had leftover from my grain sack coffee table makeover.  I intentionally made the paint look streaky so that some of the brown primer would show through, as I wanted the crate to have an antique look to it.
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After the paint dried, I lightly sanded in areas to give a further distressed look.

Next, I decided to add some text on the front of my crate.  I wanted it to look like a vintage crate I picked up at a flea market or something.  Since this was going in my fireplace, I decided to make up a fake timber company bearing my last name.

(Sidenote: I bet I would have been an awesome lumberjack if I had taken that career path.  I look really good in flannel.)

I downloaded some free rustic-looking fonts and a pine tree image, typed out my text using the Word Art function in Word, reversed the text, and printed it out on freezer paper so that I could do an image transfer.  I followed a freezer paper image transfer tutorial, and it worked really well.

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Once the text dried, I added some brackets to the exterior sides of the crate.  I think this helped make it look even more “vintage,” which is just what I wanted.
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Then I screwed four casters to the bottom of the crate.  Since the crate would be holding firewood, I wanted to be able to easily move it.  I am too weak to lift it up when it’s filled with wood!  The casters did the trick perfectly.
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It looked pretty cute just like this, but I wanted to be able to mask the ugly staining on the back wall of my firebox, so I needed to add some more height.
DIY rolling firewood caddy made from an unfinished crate available at Michaels.
I fixed this problem by adding a galvanized metal pail into my crate.
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It was the perfect addition!
DIY rolling firewood caddy made from an unfinished crate available at Michaels.
I had so much fun turning my plain crate into a functional and decorative accessory for my home!
 
What have you made with a wooden crate?
 
– Bre

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