BEACHY WOODEN COCA-COLA CRATE

I have had my eye on the Coca-Cola crates every time I hit an antique store when looking for fun and unique items for our beach cottage.  Once the dining room was put together, I felt like I needed some color on the table.  An antique Coca Cola crate would work just fine.  The only catch was - none of them were the colors I wanted.

So...I hunted down the yuckiest cola crate in my local antique store (something I could justify painting).  I came across a Double Cola crate where a lot of the paint had been rubbed off.  It was very dirty and because of the condition, it was rather cheap - right up my alley.


Before Photo

I cleaned up the crate with a wire brush to get most of the dirt off of it and then vacuumed it.  Then I used a 10% bleach solution with water and scrubbed the crate with a toothbrush.  I rinsed the crate well and let it dry.  Once dry, I sanded the piece to remove what was left of the Double Cola letters.

Next, I chose the paint colors - the darker color for the lettering: Drizzle by Sherwin Williams #6479 and the lighter field color: Tidewater by Sherwin Williams #6477.  I purchased paint samples from Lowe's (latex satin).

I first applied the darker color Drizzle to the long sides of the crate (where the lettering was going to go).  Just to be sure I had enough contrast between the two colors - I added some black acrylic paint and lightly mixed it together and unevenly applied this - think "dark highlights".  I let this dry before the next step.

I went online and found a good front shot of a vintage Coca-Cola Crate and printed the logo on a piece of paper to the scale of the crate.  This took a couple tries.  The first print out to give me a reference point, and with a little math - a second print out to the exact scale of the crate.  Then I adhered the paper print-out to the side of the crate with temporary adhesive. 

The idea here was to create a sort of reverse stencil.  I cut around the lettering - tedious but doable with an x-acto knife.  Then I removed the paper from around all the letters leaving the paper lettering intact on the side of the crate. 

I lightly applied the lighter color Tidewater over the top of the darker blue color (Drizzle) and around the paper letters.  I carefully did this with two light coats.  I avoided inadvertently pealing the paper letters off or getting too much paint on the brush and having it bleed underneath the paper.

I let the piece dry a bit before removing the paper letters which had been painted over (I found it easiest to kind of "pick" them off with the x-acto knife).  I let it dry all the way before doing some sanding to distress the crate; sanding around the edges and some select areas where the lettering was on the sides.

My apologies for failing to take photos here of the whole process.  I wasn't completely confident in how this was going to turn out - so I guess that is why I wasn't on top of taking photos.   I already had a back-up plan in mind if it didn't turn out - at the very least - I would end up with an aqua colored painted crate.  Fortunately, I think the end product turned out pretty well.

 

 

 

I have had several people say I should fill the crate with something.  I have thought about seashells - too cliché for a beach cottage?  Maybe some small pieces of driftwood?  Some glass jars/bottles that I can place fresh flowers in?  I want to come up with something truly unique, but nothing noteworthy has come to mind yet.  Anyone got any ideas?

The plan is to apply a mat spray polyurethane to seal everything up.  Currently it's way too cold out to do this, so it's going to have to wait.  Overall I think the dining room is really coming together!

Wouldn't a surf board look great propped up in the back corner?

If you are interested in a general overview of some DISTRESSING TECHNIQUES, see my post here which covers the use of SANDPAPER, CANDLEWAX and VASELINE.

For more beach cottage posts see my Beach Cottage page.