This was my first experience making something seemingly simple from scratch out of wood! I really enjoyed learning these skills, and it turned out to be more difficult than I thought.

I started by cutting the wood and planing it so it would be flat on all the edges, removing any of the rough surfaces of the raw wood. I found a few scrap pieces of 1×3 wood, so I decided to use those for the middle plank of each side of the crate to allow for more space between them. I then sanded all the pieces. When sanding, I noticed some of my cut pieces of wood still had bark on them. Wanting to keep some of the character of this wood, I decided to sand off the rough parts but keep the darker coloration in those spots.

I then began to construct my crate. I screwed the 2×2 pieces that would be the corner supports of the crate into the bottom planks from the bottom of the crate. Because I didn’t want the screws to be seen from the outside of the crate, I decided to screw them into the 2×2 frame from the inside of the crate. Because I did this (and didn’t follow the directions lol) the edges of the crate didn’t exactly line up.

Before attaching the top plank on each side, I rounded the edges with the router so it would be more comfortable to hold onto.

Because I decided to make the bottom of the crate a composite of 4 pieces instead of the square of plywood, I had to figure out a way to connect them. I tried diagonal screws from the sides, but they came up through the wood and ruined one of the pieces, so I decided not to continue with that plan. I ended up cutting 2 runners to be perpendicular to the 4 bottom planks and drilled up into them from the bottom. This way you still wouldn’t be able to see anyof the screws from the outside.

Clamping everything in place while screwing the pieces  together was actually quite difficult and not always exactly straight.

After I had constructed my crate, I used the router again to chamfer the bottom edge of the crate. I sanded it all again and wiped a thin layer of danish oil all over the crate to seal it and prevent the wood from becoming damaged. I decided to do this because I liked the look of the light wood and didn’t want to stain it darker.

And here is the finished product!

Cost Estimate:

Equipment Rental (saws, drills, router, planar, sander, etc): 8 hrs @ $30/hr = $240

Wood: 4×1 and 2×2 wood and 3×1 scrap wood: $10

Wood screws: $6 a pack

Danish Oil: $10 (only used a little bit) = $2

Labor: 8 hrs @ $15/hr = $120

Total Cost  = $378

(Just materials only cost $18)