I found an old shipping crate the other day. You know, those rough cut wood shipping crates that are used to protect machines or heavy objects when they're shipped. I picked the crate up and threw it into the back of my truck because I knew I could make something out of it, or at least reuse some of the old wood.

These crates are usually put together with industrial type staples which are impossibly difficult to get out. They leave nasty looking, stained holes in the wood and sometimes crack it - but I'm up for the challenge.

What I like most about this project is that for me it's going to be difficult to work with rough edges. I'm not all that fond of building rustic pieces, so I'm going to have to change the way I usually work and accept that rustic and aged is going to be the final outcome of anything I do with these materials.

I've seen brand new, production line furniture with this rustic look. The manufacturer usually builds the furniture all nice and perfect and then puts hammer marks and scratches into it as an after-effect. My materials are going to be rustic the whole way through.

At first, I was thinking about my readers, and was considering building a solar oven out of the crate so that everybody would see how easy it is to harvest the sun. But, I've decided against that now and will save the solar oven project for another day.

I'm a little decked out when it comes to woodworking tools so I'm going to make it a rule that I am not allowed to use my thickness planer on any of the pieces. I'm also going to make it a rule that I'm not allowed to use my jointer on any of the faces and that it can only be used on jointed sides.

Just those two rules really tie one hand behind my back, so this is going to make for an interesting finished product.

I'll be including some pictures in the next post about this project to let you see how I'm doing.

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