As part of the long, drawn-out process of growing-up the guest room, I’ve been trying to find some sort of new bedside tables without breaking the bank. Here’s how it looked after adding the headboard.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything I wanted to buy…so we went to option two, DIY!

I’d had the idea to use small crates as night stands since they could act as little bookshelves on the inside, but also be useful for holding a lamp or a drink without taking up a bunch of floor space…which we don’t really have in there.

We picked these pre-made crates up at Home Depot for about $7 each, (at Michael’s, they were more than $10 each!).

Then, I gave them a good sanding with the palm sander.

I used regular sand paper to get inside the handles.

I did my best to get out the saw marks that were visible on the pretty-cheaply made cuts in the pretty-cheaply made crates.

After sanding all the sides (inside and outside), I wiped all the dust away with a rag.

Then, I started staining it, using the leftover Dark Walnut stain we had from Wyatt’s mirror project.

 

I will warn you that staining this super-soft wood goes super fast. As in, it will pretty much all soak in within a few seconds.

Since I wanted these to be pretty dark, that worked out fine, but it wouldn’t work that well if you were wanting a lighter look. You do still need to wipe it down though, because it will dry all sticky if you don’t get the excess off.

 

It needs to dry for at least 24 hours, and if you want it darker, you can always add another coat.

Also, be careful if the stain drips through the slats of the crate because it will dry quickly and make a drip mark.

After it dried, I let Wyatt put the coat of varnish on it, since I’m not so good at keeping it smooth, and this was especially hard because of the dripping through the slats problem I mentioned earlier.

Still, I think this project turned out pretty well. Here they are all moved into the guest room.

I used some especially “bedtime-story-ish books” on the shelves, which provided some much-needed relief to the over-cramped shelves in my office.

 

We don’t have a lot of floor space in there, even though the room still may undergo a few furniture transformations.

 

But I do think these will look better once we have some art on the wall and the curtains hanging up.

And there’s plenty of room for a lamp and drink (on a coaster)(that was actually left here by the previous owner).

What do you guys think? Did these pretty cheap crates turn into pretty great nightstands? Ever done a similar project? Suggestions for “bedtime story” books?