my whimsical crate-table

Happy Labor Day!! We have really appreciated having a quiet weekend, and haven't tried to be too productive. Although we did do a bit of research for our specialist projects (it's like a master's thesis, but in our PhD program)...I'm finding I write best on my paper late at night. Who's surprised?

And then I did a fun wood project yesterday and today: I made a crate table out of tornado wood and a bit of whimsical pages from a 1950's optics textbook!

It's a bit chunkier and richer than the idea in my head, but it's growing on me. I think I like love it.

I was originally inspired by this image that I found on Pinterest, from HomeLife Australia:

Gorgeous, right?! The butterfly page is a little cliche (maybe not in Oz?), and no part of my house is that whitewashed. Haha. (How great is that white wood floor!?) But still. When I found gorgeous coasters at Lowes for $2.47 a pair, I was hooked. (Does anyone else inspire their projects by buying chunky hardware like I clearly do!?)

Soo I measured, cut, sanded, and stained my boards as usual...I went back to faithful Minwax Early American stain, just one coat (the old fencing wood soaks up stain really fast!) - that Rustoleum from the baby gate just hasn't grown on me. And two thin coats of clear polyurethane to prevent splinters and give a little more strength to the old wood.

I made the back out of some leftover plywood that I had so it would be nice and smooth for the pages.

Then I assembled the top and bottom first:

And took it inside to add the sides and back:

The sides and casters are screwed together. The back I just nailed on in a few places. Then I cut the pages at random out of an old optics book (that we got at a library sale for $1!) and used modge podge to adhere/cover the papers.

Mr Hippo definitely approves. And I made that moss ball the other night out of a green foam ball (WalMart $1?) and a sheet of moss from Michaels (~$3.50 with coupon), glued on in pieces with my hot glue gun. I like how much more mossy it looks than the moss balls that one can buy - those are too 'trim' to look very real in my opinion :)

Yum. Look at the knots in that wood!

I'm especially fond of that chunky uneven edge at the top.

If you wanted to make this but didn't have an excess of old fence wood from the tornado that hit our house, like I do - I've seen cool similar-sized crates sold at Michael's for about $15. If you used a 40% off coupon for one of those crates it wouldn't be v. expensive and would be an even easier project!

I love tornado wood projects. Happiness. What should I tackle next? I'm debating between attempting a re-do of our living room ceiling fan (it needs some love! can the blades be refinished??), a small table refinish, more tornado wood projects, or...?

Linking up to some parties: