This DIY produce stand can be made in less than 30 minutes and a variety of ways to suit your home’s style!
We all have our struggles in life, right?? Well apparently one of mine is onions and potatoes.
I mean, they’re pretty much both in my list of Top Ten Foods of All Time. They are staples in this house, and onions and potatoes frying in a cast iron skillet might be my favorite smell. If candles came in onion and potato scents, I might just cave and buy my first candle.
So what’s my struggle??
The storage. I’m 40 years old, and I’ve never really been able to figure out where to store them or how.
Because as awesome as the scent of frying onions and potatoes is… the smell of them rotting is just as bad. And I’ve been there. Since my “store them in a basket and hope you sometimes get to the bottom of it” days. I’ve been there.
So when we did a complete gut job on our pantry last month, I knew I wanted to take a day and figure out what to do with my favorite produce. As it turns out, it only took me about 30 minutes.
I found this wire wall basket thing (seriously?? What does everybody call these??) at Hobby Lobby and liked the color, so I grabbed it for around $17.
But I didn’t like the way it looked right up against the wall. I also didn’t really want my onions and potatoes touching the wall through the basket since we all know there’s a chance they might go bad in my house.
So I did what has become my standard operating procedure, and I headed to the garage to look for scrap wood. I have no idea where this piece of wood came from, but it fit the bill for this project.
I trimmed some extra off the top since it was a little too long, but I left the width as is. I did want to rough up the sides some, though, so they weren’t so straight. I wanted more of a rustic, live edge type of look.
So I took my hacksaw and just started angling it on the sides to take little pieces away here and there.
I did this sporadically around the sides and across the top. I wasn’t really going for a wave type look that you can get with a jigsaw. I wanted more of a faux live edge where spots are worn away but it doesn’t go the whole way through.
Once I had it the way I liked it, I sanded the whole thing really well. The front and back got really good sandings as well, so they are completely smooth. Then I stained it and we attached the wooden board directly to the wall.
We held the basket up to the wood to see the approximate placement of it. We wanted the screws to be hidden behind the wire basket, so while we were holding it up, we made small pencil marks to show where to place our screws. Setting the basket aside, screw the wood directly into the wall using the pencil markings as your guide. We used 4 screws to hold it in.
Then we held the wire basket back up and screwed that into the wood. If you screw the basket into the wood first, you won’t be able to hide the screws that hold it into the wall. Just a personal preference, but something to keep in mind!
The picture above actually shows 2 of the screws, but you can’t really see them since we hid them behind the rack! Above the top right onion, you can almost see the screw that holds the rack to the wood. But the screw that holds the wood to the wall is completely hidden behind the rack!
I love the way it fills up this empty wall space we ended up with after our dining room renovation! Plus, I’m always a fan of projects that are inexpensive, practical and nice to look at all at the same time!
I love the slight hint of color to them, but, of course, I’m never really afraid of color or going bold! Or apparently worrying too much about whether my colors blend. I just go with it and the more color in my house, the happier I am!
If you want something a little more monochromatic and classic looking, these baskets would be perfect for this project! They come in industrial gray and I love how the front dips down a little for easier access for your produce!
Seriously perfect for this project or any other… good for a mail/organization center too! Supplies
Needed:
2 Baskets
Piece of scrapwood to fit the height and width of your baskets
Stain (I used Minwax Honey)
8 Screws
Other projects that might interest you:
Floating Shelves out of scrap wood
And be sure to pin this project so you can make it as soon as your baskets arrive!
