The crate that became a coffee table, Part 1

Pancakes and French Fries

Today I'm linking up with Jules' William Morris project. I didn't choose this item on my list because it's the only one that fits in with the "have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful" theme, but because I couldn't stand to stare at it for one more day without taking some action. Believe me, I have plenty of overstuffed drawers, cluttered closets and dirty cabinet doors clamoring for my attention. It's just that sometimes, my personality type needs a fun project to be motivated to do a hard project. And this crate was just what I needed. I'm planning on using it as a coffee table/blanket storage chest for all those nights the kids make pallets in the living room and I end up with a huge pile of bedding the next morning that I have to deal with. This chest is going to solve that problem.

This is the crate that my husband got from the locker room of the junior high in our town. Our church bought the building and when they cleaned it out, my husband called dibs on it.

It appears to be some sort of military crate that was used for shipping supplies. The date on the label says 12/69. We've had it sitting on our porch for about a year. I knew when I first saw it, I wanted to transform it into a coffee table, but Mr. Park wasn't too sure. He kind of ignored my dreaming out loud and promptly started storing stuff in it. Fast forward to last weekend, when I forced the issue. I told him I wanted to start working on it and he told me he didn't think it was a good idea. We debated the issue until my husband confessed that he thought it was too flimsy and wouldn't hold up to a life in our living room, which we both knew would include being a stage for spontaneous performances. I released him to shore it up however he saw fit and he was instantly on board.

Unfortunately, for him, that was going to require a lot of tedious work. Fortunately for me, he can do pretty much anything he sets his mind to. I kind of felt bad for him, working all day last Saturday cutting and hammering and running back and forth to Lowe's for more supplies, but he was right, it needed it. Besides, I was the one who ran to Lowe's. ;)

The first thing Mr. Park decided this crate needed, in order to be the perfect coffee table, was to have  a little taken off the top. I wanted to put caster wheels on the bottom, so it made sense to make it shorter.

I have to agree, that's a lot better height for a coffee table. Especially since our couches sit kind of low to the ground.

The next thing it needed was inside reinforcement. Mr. Park cut plywood pieces to reinforce the inside walls and screwed them in place.

Even though this part of the project was mostly about what my husband wanted to do to make this thing structurally sound, I had some pretty firm ideas about how I wanted it to look. I knew I wanted caster wheels on the bottom, so those skids that were there had to go. The only problem was that they were holding the whole thing together and a few pieces of thin plywood inside weren't going to do the job that they were doing. So after a little consultation with his brother, Mr. Park decided to turn the box upside down, remove the large skids and replace them with smaller pieces that matched the braces on the sides.

Once he removed one of the skids, we saw that they had been attached with nails from the inside.

Nice.

While I sawed the ends of the nails off with a Dremel, Mr. Park cut and attached the new braces in place.

As we lost the last bit of sunlight, the first part of this project was complete. Now all I have to do is settle on the wheel style I want, find hinges for the lid and stain the whole thing. Stay tuned next week for the completion of this project!





Linking up here...

Pancakes and French Fries