Do-It-Yourself Wood Crate Bookcase

Apartment living is ideal for many people, but its smaller living space can be seen as a shortcoming. To switch up their living room some, Boom Brothers owner, Mitch, and his girlfriend, Alison, set out on a Do-It-Yourself bookcase adventure. Nothing against the old bookcase, but if you put something against it, it could fall over.

Alison was in charge, and not being particularly handy with tools, she decided to go with wood crates. Wood crates are incredibly easy to make on your own and, generally, one of the cheapest options in storage. Recycling existing pallet wood brings the cost down further and, thanks to a popular pinning website, it has become a hot commodity and can be easily found on websites like Craigslist.

That being said, Alison found some pre-made crates at a local hardware store and decided to go with it. Sometimes the added cost of a pre-made product is justified by the time saved.

Once they got the crates home, some additional prep work was required. Alison sanded down the edges that were left rough, and Mitch used paint thinner to get rid of the sticky coat left behind from the store’s price tags.

Since it was too windy to spray paint, they used regular paint with primer and set up shop inside. As they were confined to their living room and didn’t want to make a mess (no upsetting the landlords!) they cut up garbage bags as the barrier to be laid underneath the crates as they were being painted. The crates weren’t very large and the painting went quickly.

When the crates were painted and dry, all there was left to do was stack them how they wanted. The crates were sturdy enough they didn’t need to attach them to each other.

Even though the new bookcase is about the same size as the other, the longer dimension better fits their living room and is capable of adding the taller elements like framed prints or potted plants to get them off of the floor. As an added bonus with crates, if Mitch and Alison want to make the bookcase bigger or smaller all they have to do is rearrange what they already have.