Fruit Box Shelves

Nectarines used to come in timber boxes. The boxes used to get crushed and trashed. I rescued some fruit boxes from the scrap heap at our local fruit store... about 14 years ago. The fruit no longer comes in timber boxes like these.  In fact towards the end of the Nectarine season that year after the fruiterer had kept me in timber boxes (which I had given freely to many, many friends) he showed me the new waxed cardboard boxes and said they would be coming in these from then onward.  NOOOOOOO.

Not long after this sad day we moved interstate... 1800km away. The few remaining fruit boxes came too.

I had intended to paint the up and do something crafty with them. In our new unit we were short on space (understatement) and there was a small area in a walk way that was not utilised. I hadn't been able to display any of my sweet nic-nacs and I spied my pile of boxes sitting in the corner.

Inspiration struck.

Off to the hardware store and the purchase of some lengths of dressed pine and a packet of screws later meant that all the materials were ready for a little creative storage.

Hubster broke out the cordless drill and we assembled our new shelves. The pine was 1" x 1/2" in 5' lengths or in metric 25mm x 18mm  x 1500mm.  Each support is screwed to the box side near the top and bottom of the box-side. Simple.

 Originally I was trying to decide whether I wanted to paint or stain them.
Life got busy and I ended up leaving them raw. The pine of both aged to the same tone.

 As you can see they are pretty dusty now and in need of a good clean up.

I took these photos of one of them when we were cleaning up the furniture to paint for Ra's room.

The first 4 years of the shelf life (couldn't resist) was spent as display shelves for photos, bears and pretties.  With each subsequent move the shelves (we made two sets) got to serve many purposes both practical and display only. finding a new way to use the 'box shelves' was one of the more enjoyable aspects of each house move.

Why am I mentioning it now?

Two main reasons.

1. It is a clever use of re-cycled boxes (long before it became fashionable) which I haven't ever blogged it.

2. The other reason is that I am planning to put the shelves to use in our latest home - it's only taken a year. This is the second house only where the shelves haven't had a purpose. So finding them a role now is both a joy and the end of an era.

We are planning on disassembling the shelves for the first time in many years and will reuse them in Ra's new room.  The plan is to paint them and attach them to the wall to use as decorative storage for our girl's bear collection.  There are quite a few details still to work out; colour to paint them (white, light blue or feature blue?); how to attach them to the wall (rental house); how to layout the boxes??

I am looking forward to each step in this next project but wanted to share my beloved fruit box shelves.

Oh and in all the houses, in all the locations, with plenty of uses... I don't have a single digital photo of the shelves in use. There are several where they are in the background but not able to be clearly seen. I do have a couple of pre-digital pics but they are in albums... too hard.