New Spirit for Vintage Dairy Crate Wine Rack
When I visit a new town, there are two things I hope to find—a fabulous, locally owned restaurant or bakery and an antique or junk store. There’s something charming and mysterious about antique stores that allures me in the door.
Antiques are intriguing. They are tiny bits of history; fragments of family memories and untold stories.
I like the materials. You won’t find much plastic in an antique store. There’s a lot of glass, wood, tin, metal and iron. And really old books.
On a recent visit to an antique store in Pipestone, MN, I picked up this old milk bottle crate and repurposed it as a wine rack. I can think of other possibilities—towel and wash cloth holder for the bathroom, magazine or newspaper rack, or hang it on the wall in the kitchen and place rolled dish towels and dish cloths in it.
Raise your glass. Cheers to Zaiser’s Dairy which is no longer in existence. And cheers to the person who, instead of discarding this old dairy crate, kept its spirit alive by selling it at an antique store.
Here are a few other ways I’ve reused crates and baskets.
Sweet wishes,
My grandfather, Warren Delward Eliseuson, worked for Zaiser’s Dairy in Montevideo, MN from 1935 (when he got out of the CCC) until 1940. He was the last milkman to deliver milk in a horse-drawn wagon – I have a photo of him with his horse and wagon 🙂 I was just tonight reading the transcript of the oral history he gave regarding his time in the CCC and updating my genealogy records, when I decided to look up more about Zaiser’s dairy and found this 🙂 Thank you for helping preserve our family’s story and for your care for “old things” 🙂
I could never find much information about Zaiser’s Dairy so thank you for sharing your story! I live near Lake Benton MN so I’m not even that far from Montevideo. Very neat!!
I love your latest antique find and all the wonderful uses you have thought of for it. It does make a great wine rack…what a conversation piece.
I LOVE your new wine rack! (You knew I would, right?!) 🙂