We found this classic old hand cart at Aurora Mills Architectural Salvage. If you've never been to the place you should treat yourself. They have acres of old lumber, carts, lights, windows and just about anything else you could want. If you own an old house it's a wonderful place to find those authentic odds and ends that you end up needing. We wanted this cart to hold some wine for the shop. In our remodel project we want to have our top eight wines out front on a cart, and we also wanted to be able to have several cases of those wines for people to grab and go. Kathy wanted an older cart, so I got to adapt this one to our purposes. I really like the old metal wheels and the old, rugged wood. The only place that the wood is smooth are the handles where generations of workers added the oils from their hands as they lifted and hefted whatever they were carting around.
We wanted to be able to have one of the bottles displayed at the top of the cart where folks could look at it, so I had to add a shelve. I used the same older wood that I had received from Carson at Cellar Ridge Custom Homes. I used some of the oldest, roughest pieces for this job. I also was able to use some of the old bolts that came with the wood. These two by eights were used as trusses in the old building and the bolts you see in the photo at the right are the same ones that were in the wood to begin with. I also copied the pattern of five bolts together that was used in the old building, which I think is really fun. It does mean that this cart was a bit overbuilt. Those bolts used to hold up a building. (By the way, if you have any creative uses for bolts like these I have a drawer full of them!)
I purposely didn't sand the wood very much, but left the old saw patterns. It's a rough, rustic piece, but I really like the way it turned out.
In the photo to the left, you can see the whole cart with some boxes along the bottom shelve. The boxes will be stacked two high when we have this in the shop. If you want all of the wine on the cart, the wheels actually work, so we could just run the whole thing out to your car and fill it up. Next on my project list are some shelves. I plan to use the same rough lumber and custom build them to fit the spaces we have available. I love projects like this cart where I can re use an old piece and bring new life to it. And, if there is a serious earthquake in the not too distant future, this cart would be a great place to seek shelter (and if you were stuck for an extended period of time you'd have some great wine to enjoy while you awaited rescue!)