Keep the kids organized with these DIY crate shelves! They’re perfect for storing kid’s toys and books. Follow our step-by-step tutorial to make your own colourful crate shelves.
For this project we partnered with Good Housekeeping South Africa and Woodoc Food for Wood. We wanted to make an affordable and attractive place to store children’s toys. These DIY crate shelves are the perfect solution. We just love how colourful they are!
Here’s a fun video showing how to make these crate shelves:
Materials you’ll need for your crate shelves:
- 4 x upcycled wooden crates
- Woodoc Water-Borne™ Clear and White
- Woodoc Colours – we used Mulberry and Aquamarine
- Sandpaper and a sanding block
- 2 x Paintbrushes
- Paint stirring sticks
How to Make Crate Shelves:
First, find some crates to upcycle. These can be wine crates or old crates that you might find in your garage. If you want to get super creative you can make your own crates from pallets. Hold tight for a tutorial on how to do that.
Once you have your crates sand them really well. This is a good time to recruit some friends. Hey there Stacey!
After sanding, use a soft, dry cloth to wipe all the dust off your crates. Now it’s time to mix the paint. Woodoc Water-Borne™ is a wood sealant that comes in both Clear and White. It’s a really lovely sealant that doesn’t turn yellow and is really easy to apply. To make our gorgeous colours, we added Woodoc Colours to the Woodoc Water-Borne™ Clear and White. Then we split the bottles of Mulberry and Aquamarine, and added half to the Clear and half to the White.
This gave us two shades for each colour! All we had to do was stir the mixture with a stir stick. Check out the video above to see the mixing in action.
Upcycling is better with friends! Painting outside is an awesome summer activity. Involve your kids or invite your friends to join. Lexi will tell you how much fun it is.
We did 3 coats of paint on each crate. Allow each coat to fully dry before you apply the next coat. Pro tip: hold 1 crate handle to manoeuvre the crate as you paint and then paint that side last.
These colours are just so gorgeous!
Once your crates are dry you can play around with positioning them. To make them extra sturdy, attach your crates together and secure them to the wall.
You now have some lovely crate shelves. Add your children’s toys and keep them organized with these easy DIY crate shelves!
