Storage That Stacks Up

I was going to recreate a jazzy title but I thought This Old House magazine did such a good job, why recreate the wheel? Some people have a thing for baskets. I have a thing for wooden fruit crates. But, I don’t allow myself to keep them anymore because I know what happens — they sit around and I think, “Oh I’ll use them one day” but then I never come up with an idea and eventually get rid of them.

Wooden fruit crates remind me of times gone by. So I have this nostalgic feeling toward them and instinctively want to keep them. Classic Freedoms are often nostalgic for the past and I learned this summer at the Association for Psychological Type International’s biennial conference that his is because Classic Freedoms (ISFJ’s specifically) are in their most calm brain state when thinking about history. Our brains are WIRED to love history because it’s calming. This explains my history major, no?

But as I said above, without an actual use for old fashioned fruit crates, I had long since forbidden myself to keep them. And this rule still applies to me because I’m still living in a NYC high rise apartment without a garden. Yet, this rule need not apply to others in search of an attractive gardening tools storage option. You can find fruit crates on eBay. Once you get a gaggle of them, simply drill pilot holes in the corners — where the wood is reinforced as the screws might split the thinner wood — and then screw in ceramic-coated deck screws to connect the crates. They also suggest screwing the unit into the wall through the backs of the crate. But, they don’t say how this thinner wood on the back will not split if the side wood might split if you try to screw these things together in any other place but the corners. So, you are warned by the Pixies that screwing this into the wall might split the wood but perhaps worth a try to make it stable. I’d give you directions to the website for specific directions but I couldn’t find a link or their image even though this was featured in June 2011. Why do magazines make it so tough to find their print stuff online?? It’s a pet peeve of mine!!