I am over it - over it, over it and over it. All of the snow - and the mud that is soon to follow. But I finally have a solution for one part of it - a DIY vintage crate boot rack.

Sometimes, a project has all the ingredients that make it perfection for me.

Fills a need, fits a space perfectly, works functionally, clears some of my hoard collection out of the garage, inexpensive, re-purposes vintage items and is down right cute. And this project checks off this whole list in my book.

I love our mudroom, but the reality is I planned our mudroom poorly. The bins for all of the muddy messy boots are all the way on the opposite side of the room. But don’t we all need a place to store the boots coming in from outside?

Not to mention dirty dogs. Do you see the dirt on those paws. Ugh.

I have a very small area here before there are stairs. And what you can’t see is that to the right of the bins is the door to the garage. It drives me crazy if I can’t open the door all the way and this area was always full with piled up, falling over dirty boots that blocked the door.

Here is what you need to create this project:

- Crates: they can easily be found at vintage shops, yard sales, etc.

- Metal Brackets – you need enough brackets to connect each crate to the others it touches.

- Large Metal Bracket – this will run along the bottom to hold it all together and give stronger support.

- Casters – depending on the size, anywhere from 4 – 6 casters. The casters make it easy to move out of the way to clean the inevitable mess that will grow around it.

- Drill

-Small Screws – you want to make sure not to go deeper than the wood thickness.

Step 1:

Determine the configuration of your crates that fits your space best. Try different sizes and orientations of the crates. We only stacked two crates high, if you go higher, you might want to secure it to the wall for safety.

Step 2:

Drill a pilot hole and then use the small screws and metal brackets to attach the crates to each other for stability.

Step 3:

Drill pilot holes and screws to attach the long metal bracket across the bottom.

Step 4:

Drill pilot holes and screws to attach the casters. I chose to also add them at the center so that it would not sag.

Step 5:

When it was all pulled together, we added some screws inside the crates (towards the front) to attach to the crate next to it. This gave additional stability to the unit.

And that is it!

We also chose to attach the beverage crate at the top to hold gloves, sunglasses, etc. Most of the hats and gloves are in the bins on the other side of the room, but there is space for a quick grab or the wet stuff.

If you had a little more room, it would also work great to add some baskets, hooks and even clothes pins to store hats and gloves as well.

Since I seem to love to projects made from salvaged and rustic wood elements, you can see all of those projects here.

I seem to also have a love affair with doors – here is one of my most recent door projects.

Thanks so much for reading and wishing you a great day!