The wine crate wall
95% of wineries store, protect, and ship their wine in cardboard instead of wood. Of course, shipping in cardboard is much less expensive, which makes wood wine crates so special.
I first noticed wine crate walls in restaurants and loved the look. Here’s how to create the wine crate wall in your own home!
Repurposing the wooden wine crates
We had wooden wine crates around for years and used them for everything from makeshift book shelves to jewelry boxes. We even took a couple apart and Garret incorporated them into furniture he built. When we downsized, we just didn’t have room to store all the crates anymore. So why not take them apart and just keep the panel with the winery’s logo design? So step one is to do that but very carefully with a chisel. If you use too much force the wood will split. Another fun fact about the panels, is that they are mostly unfinished wood, which means you can finish them with any color stain you like.
Before
After
In our new townhouse we have a hallway niche on the main floor right outside the 1/2 bath.
An upgrade from the builder was to have a built-in bar put in, but I knew Garret would come up with something much more creative.
We had a large selection of bar glasses, originally housed in our kitchen, that now had no home in our downsized house. We found this glass door cabinet in the clearance section of Ikea which fit perfectly into that space and stored the glasses. To add depth and interest, behind it, we created our wine crate wall!
How to create the wine crate wall
It’s actually surprisingly easy!
Measure the wall space you want to cover. I took painters tape and taped the space off on the floor. I then took all the pieces of wood and laid them out creating a collage. Of course, it would have been great if they all fit perfectly in my taped off space, but some ended up having to be cut down. My husband used a hand saw for that. Then it’s as easy as starting in one corner and nailing them onto the wall. Some will be thicker than others and stick out but that’s part of the look.
We had a ton of cigar boxes (you can get them free from most tobacco stores), so we used those to fill in some of the spaces. They were also wood, so they blended perfectly.
To finish off the space we hung a pendant light (replacing the recessed can) to create softer light with an Edison bulb. Now it’s your turn. I would love to see how it turns out!
For more fun DIY ideas check out the 1/2 bath!