Hey friends! Are you ready for my final DIY challenge? Because I’m super excited about it. A few weeks ago I was visiting my cousin and her husband in their cozy Santa Barbara apartment and was super impressed that she had made a coffee table out of crates from Michaels! While I loved the coffee table and wanted to recreate it, I realized we didn’t really have anywhere to put it in our apartment. BUT we did really need some nightstands! We have been using stacked boxes for the last 6 months and, while functional, they aren’t the best furniture #newlywedlife. So I brainstormed and came up with a way to use the same crates to make some thrifty nightstands!

The crates were fairly cheap at $10, but I had to be a bit of a diva in the store and stack and re-stack them on top of each other to get the best alignment possible. I may have pulled out 90% of the crates from 3 shelves while Matt stood a few feet away pretending he didn’t know me. Needless to say, they aren’t the most precisely measured crates, but they worked for my purposes!

Next we took a trip to Home Depot and it took me back to the days when my dad bribed my sister and I to go on Home Depot trips with the smooth floors we could use our Heely’s to skate on. Remember those? Best shoes ever.

After an hour of wandering around looking at various ways to hold the crates together and stains, I finally decided on wood glue and a dark glossy stain in a spray can. We also got sandpaper to remove the splinters in the crates.

After sanding down the crates, we brought them inside and glued them together, then weighted them down with all of Matt’s super heavy science books. The perfectionist in me got a little frustrated that the crates still wouldn’t line up perfectly, but what can you do.

Action shot – at this point Matt asked if the paint fumes were getting to me…. haha.

Before and after!

I was so excited to finish this project and FINALLY have nightstands that look great for cheap! I think we spent about $25 per nightstand, which was definitely worth the upgrade from the boxes! The DIY challenge will definitely be one of my favorites and a hobby that I am going to try hard to continue. Drumroll for next month’s challenge….

I can tell you right now this month will definitely be a challenging one for me, but I’m holding on hope that it will make me a more well-rounded person. See you next Tuesday!