crate night stand

So my husband needs a nightstand. Like REALLY REALLY bad. I have been looking at Craigslist and checking yardsales, but all to no avail. And before anyone thinks to herself, "Surely one could find a reasonably priced nightstand at a thrift store," let me assure you, the thriftstores here are not thrifty. It's depressing. I haven't given up, but in the interim I decided to make one.

Tutorial after the jump!

Firstly, I headed to Joann's and picked up a couple of these large wooden crates:

 They're on sale right now, and I got them for $4 each. I stained them with (what else) Minwax and let them dry in the garage with a little space heater. The space heater is totally a necessity right now, what with the damp, cold, miserable weather.

Then I stacked them and secured them with three screws. I drilled pilot holes first, since I thought the wood might split:

Then I got out the old hammer and beat the crap out of the crates to distress 'em. I smacked all the edges and corners, and even turned the hammer around and used the claw part here and there on the flat sides.

And that's all she wrote. It's not ideal, but until I find that perfect table, this will do nicely.

And Dexter likes it too. He wouldn't stop posing in front of it: