my beach house of weathered whitewashed crates

Last summer I used to kind of drool over the weathered fencing around the back of our house and imagine ways to countenance building a new fence and using the old wood for crafty projects. I think the cosmos was laughing at me, as now that the tornado has blown down a good chunk of fencing I have practically limitless weathered wood at my disposal. This is just one of the many sections:

I still love the wood and have started pinning 'barnwood' craft ideas on Pinterest. Buuut we are planning to move in January (to CERN in Geneva for research! woot) so it seems a little silly to be making new things - or at least, I wanted to rationalize what I was going to do with what I made. Finally I saw this post about making crates that looked vintage and I decided to try it...surely I can find a use for it, or if not perhaps sell it as tornado-salvaged vintage wood creation, right? :)

Initially I thought I'd use a plywood base like the House of Smiths did, so these are my supplies, and Ellie keeping watch over the process:

The whole process was v. free form, because I didn't want the crate to look too perfect. I decided that 18" x 12" would be a good size and realized I could probably use fence boards for the bottom as well. I thought I'd do 3 boards on each side and 3 boards across the bottom. Here are my boards, cut and sanded a little (it was getting dark, thus the lighting issues):

I sanded the boards a little to avoid anyone getting slivers (these boards are v. rustic.) and to make my new cuts less obvious. Then I assembled the base out of three 18" boards, with two boards cut to 10" crosswise. I used finishing nails for all of the assembly - I figured screws would look too 'constructed' and I don't need it to hold heavy bricks or anything.

The base:

At this point I realized that three boards high for the sides was going to be too high, so I cut down my corner posts accordingly. Love my handheld sander and jig saw. Then assembled the rest with hammer and finishing nails:

Notice how I was too lazy to even move that remaining tree branch left on the porch after tornado? Ha.

Next staining - I wanted to add a little more interest to the piece especially because I'd sanded it down a little. Lookie how I resisted staining it dark brown! I tried another test piece though in both brown and white. The brown doesn't look red in real life. Silly night-time photos:

I restrained myself and decided to try white with the 'dry brush' technique - used barely any paint (from a leftover white sample pot) and a 63 cent foam brush from WalMart, brushed/rubbed over the surface. I realized that this aged-white technique looks to me like 'I had this crate at my secret beach house, but it was there so long and so relaxed that it became this lovely aged tone'. Haha. Will probably go back and add rope handles later, but it's Sunday so Lowes is closed early.

And then...done and time to model where to put it! By bed?

By sofa? (too small):

Ah HA...this cluttery corner could use it:

The newspaper stack is our agreed-upon spot of where newspapers go before they get recycled. It's not a v. noticeable corner of the living room so it works great, although clutter does get shifted there...time for a
Operation Secret Beach House (before on left, after on right - I know it's subtle!):

That corner is still in serious need of some colour. But for now the crate is fun :) What do you think? Should I make a bigger one? Stain it brown? Leave it au natural? Or go on to another barnwood project...? I think I shall make a bigger crate for pillows by sofa. Which makes husband start joking about the uselessness of crates of pillows ;)