Project-ing

We have been doing tons and tons of projects around this place lately, which will soon be revealed...

...but they all seem to take a little longer with our, um "enthusiastic" assistant running around.

But, I do have a project to share with y'all that I finished a while back.

My new wine rack!

..because what else do you build while pregnant and pining for your sweet, sweet wine? Ha.

Seriously though, a local dairy farm that is no longer operating as a dairy farm, but is still a totally a rad place to visit and eat, was selling off all their old milk crates.

Cleaned they were $5 a piece (I think) and dirty? 

$2. 

SERIOUSLY.

(I think. They might have been $4? I t was a while back. I forget. Moral of the story? They were CHEAP.)

So, I grabbed a couple (dozen) dirty ones for friends and family who wanted them, and some for me with the thoughts to make an awesome wine rack.

Regardless of my husband's skepticism that I could make something solid out of wood that had been hanging out in barns for God knows how long, it worked!

 Originally, I was just going to stack three of the crates, attach them to one another and call it a day.

But, it didn't seem that sturdy and was a little too tall and skinny for the space I had in mind. So, I nabbed one of the extra crates I had set aside for my Momma, who wanted "two or three" (spoiler alert - she got two! Sorry Momma!) and came up with my new design.

I scrubbed them down a little more (I had hosed them down previously), and then got to work. I decided to use Liquid Nails to attach the crates to one another after debating between that and a nuts/bolt situation for a long while. To be honest, I just wasn't sure if the wood could take just a few stress points of screws and nuts. So, I whipped out my trusty Liquid Nails.

I put two of the "halves" together with my VERY sophisticated system of weights, and let it dry overnight.

Can you tell by the lighting that most of this was done after our helper went to bed? 

Then I got to work on the legs. I wasn't sure about using any previously, but my new design ended up being a bit too short for my taste, so I picked these up from Lowe's and grabbed a stain to match the crates.

Again, using my VERY sophisticated tools, I threw some stain on these babies.

And on some base blocks that I had a nice dude at Lowe's cut for me.

By that night, they looked like this!

All ready for some legs.

I stacked my two halves of the crate rack together with some more Liquid Nails, attached the base blocks and let it hang out overnight. 

In the morning - I had this!

...aren't you glad those free weights are getting some use? I know I am.

Flipped it over, and there we go!

I still want to poly the outside of it for some protection, but don't want to lose that weathered look, so I need to special order some matte finish poly - none of the home improvement stores around us sell it.


But, in the meantime, I am hella happy with my round about $20 wine rack.

What do you think?

Evelyn Rae is 18 months old, I am 37 weeks along with Bump

...and little one has actually done  great job adhering to Mommy's "Off Limits" rule regarding this rack thus far. Just in case, none of our "nice" bottles of wine have migrated into it just yet... ;)