How To Make A Wooden Box

I promised you all that I would write this post when I shared How to Turn A Curbside Dresser Into A Bar. In that project, we made a wooden box to store ice. I mentioned how often we make wooden boxes and that I needed to write a post about how we do it. Well, a few of you have been asking about this post and I am happy to report it is finally here! I picked up a great little piece at a yard sale that needed wooden boxes so the timing was perfect.

Wooden boxes are a weakness for me. They are in my top ten list of things you should buy at yard sales and I am always drawn to them when I see them in stores. Then, I see the price tag and I am not so drawn to them anymore. We started making them for different projects and today I am going to share with you how we make a wooden box!

{*Disclaimer: This post is long, but I really wanted to get pictures of each stage so you can get a good understanding of how we make wooden boxes.)

(This post contains affiliate links. You can read my disclosure HERE.)

Supplies Needed To Make A Wooden Box:

Wood

Masonite boards

Table Saw

Miter Saw

Nail Gun

Tape Measure

Orbital Sander

Crown Stapler

Directions To Make A Wooden Box:

To make our wooden boxes, we use any wood we have on hand. The particular boxes for this project were made from wood left over from the reclaimed wall we added to the back porch makeover.

Okay, let’s get to making some homemade boxes without hefty price tags, shall we?!

To start, measure how tall you need the sides of the wooden box to be. Then, set your table saw to your measurement.

Next, cut the wood.

Now, it is time to measure again.

Mark the board you just cut to the width you need the sides of the box to be. This time around, our boxes needed to be shorter on the sides and longer on the front and back. Matt took one board to cut both of those measurements and made “templates”.

Once the “template” boards are cut, use them to cut the rest of the sides needed to complete all the boxes you need. To do this, stack the “template” board on top of another board (already cut down to height size) to use as the guide.

{A little tip from Matt: Make sure to use the same “template” board through all the cuts so they are uniform.}

Now that all the sides of the wooden box are cut to the size you need, it is time to make 45° angle cuts. Set the miter saw at 45° and it is ready to make the angle cut.

To make the angled cut, turn the board on its side and line the saw blade up with the corner edge of the board.

Your board will look like this after it’s cut:

Now, it is ready to put together!

Use a nail gun to connect all four sides together.

The bottom of the box is next. We use the thin boards you usually find on the back of laminate furniture. I didn’t know what the name of it was so I called my dad and he said it is like Masonite boards. We pick these boards up at Restore when we find them because we use them on a lot of projects like this.

To add the bottom to the box frame you made, measure the frame and cut the Masonite board with the table saw.

Matt uses a crown stapler to attach the bottom to the box frame.

Once it is all put together, use an orbital sander to smooth down all the edges.

For this project, I wanted to add hardware to the front of the boxes because we were making “drawers” for the piece I brought home. These pulls were a Restore find. I spray painted them black and screwed them to the front of each box.

Finally, the transformation and the project starts coming together!

The piece below is what we made the wood boxes for this time around. As soon as I saw it at the yard sale, I knew wooden boxes would make it a beautiful piece.

HomeRight just released their Small Spray Shelter and I was excited to use it for this project. The piece I got at the yard sale is not big so the small spray shelter worked perfectly!

Since we are in the middle of the porch makeover, everything is cleared out of there. It has been nice having that extra room to work on projects. I set the shelter up in there and got this piece painted in no time.

I was able to spray paint the entire piece inside this tent in my porch! All of the windows were open and I didn’t have to worry about paint getting everywhere because the shelter protected it all.

This little guy turned out so great. A little paint and some new wooden boxes was all it needed.

The hardware on the boxes didn’t hurt either. 😉

This post was long, but once you start making these at home, it goes by fast. You will be amazed how much money you can save by making your own wooden boxes.

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