What would you say to building a really awesome looking rustic cooler for your next party?
Hi there! I'm Jeff with Home Repair Tutor. And I'm all in. I made one and I want to show
you how to do it, too. And I think in the end, you'll find it to be super awesome. So
let's get started.
You'll need about five to eight really good palettes for this project. Then I highly recommend
power-washing the bottom and the tops of the palettes because it makes a huge difference
in the appearance of the wood as you can see here. I only used one saw for this entire
project and that's the Dremel Ultra-saw. And it has an adjustable foot on it, as you can
see, which comes in handy when you have to cut out the 5/8" thick slats in the palettes.
So, it made cutting out these slats super simple and easy. And if you have to remove
any of the nails or screws that hold the palettes in place, you can use the Ultra-saw for that,
too.
Here's the cooler that I used. It was hanging out in our garage. And I matched up the slats
to see how they would look. But the first thing you need to do is remove all the hardware
from the cooler --- so any of the handles, latches, etc. And if you have to, you can
use the Ultra-saw to cut out the handles of the cooler. So, remove the wheels as well
and then, finally, the hinges.
You can use the slats to make the legs of your rustic cooler. In my case, I wanted them
to be about 33" long. So I drew a little mark and then drew a line across the slat using
my rafter square and remove any staples from the edge that might cause my saw not to work
right. I just used the Ultra-saw to make these cuts. And then you can use either composite
deck screws like these here. And these are great because their heads go flush into wood.
Or you can use outdoor wood screws. I used the wood screws because they were one and
a quarter inches in length. And my slats are about 5/8" thick. So, that's why I used those.
Apply wood glue to the edges of your slats and then put them together at a 90° angle.
Pre-drill and then apply the wood or deck screws. When you pre-drill, it prevents the
wood from splintering. So I applied about five screws to the face of the slats. And
you'll need to build four of these legs for the rustic cooler. Make sure to wipe off any
excess wood glue.
Place two legs on top of your cooler just like I did here and measure the distance between
them. In my case, I got 15½" but needed to 1¼" to that distance because the front and
back slats are both 5/8" thick. So cut the slats to size using the Ultra-saw and then
lay your legs on the ground. Apply wood glue. Stick your slat in between the two legs. Pre-drill
and then screw the screws into place. Your sides will look like this. Place one of the
sides up against the cooler. And then two slats: one in the front, so, flush with the
front, and then another slat flush with the side. This will give you the measurement for
the slats that need to go in the front and the back of the cooler. And then dry-fit that
slat to see if it works. Again, apply wood glue to the sides of the cooler. Pre-drill
and screw in your decking screws, attaching the front and back slats to the sides of the
rustic cooler. And just keep doing this and you'll stack the slats one after another.
You can create a little shelf for the rustic cooler. Dry-fit the plastic cooler into the
rustic cooler framing and push it up so that the top of the plastic cooler will sit flush
with the slats you're going to use for that shelf. Now I measured the distance between
the two legs, applied wood glue, pre-drilled, and screwed the slats for the slats for the
front and the back into place. I also measure the side slats that I'm going to be using
for the shelf. Put it into place, pre-drilled and screwed it down. And then, I made a flush
cut using the Ultra-saw. And I'm really happy with how this turned out. It looks great.
You'll have to build the slats around your plastic lid. Put two slats on the front and
the back of the lid. Measure the distance and cut a slat to size. Once you have that
smaller slat, then you can cut the front and back longer pieces. Again, pre-drill and then
screw them into place. It's just a little box and all I did was attach wood slats on
top of it. So there you go, there's our little box that goes over the lid. Now, the next
step is to turn that over and then drill screws through the faces of the slats into the lid.
Now they'll hold the lid in place. And finally, turn the rustic cooler over and attach supports
on the bottom.
The last step and the final step is to apply all the hardware. You can apply elevator bolts
and T-nuts --- and this is what a T-nut looks like --- to the bottom of the cooler so that
you can adjust it up or down. Dry-fit the T-nut on all four legs, draw a hole through
the bottom of the leg, pound the T-nut into place and then screw the elevator bolts in.
So, again, do this for all four legs and you'll have an adjustable rustic cooler.
You can add the hinges to the lid. I measured in five inches from the edge. Dry-fit the
hinge, drew all the hole for the hinge holes and then pre-drilled and screwed it down.
If you can find exterior grade hinges, I highly using those. But mine turned out really great.
I'm happy with that.
The next step is to drill out the hole for the drain. So I drilled out from the inside
and then drilled a hole from the outside. I used a 1¼" Speedbor bit by Irwin to make
that hole bigger so that it would accommodate the original drain size. So, here's the original
drain and all I did was use a coupling, you see here, and I screw that coupling on because
it allows me to attach a ¾" brass drain to it. So, I put the drain to the cooler in place
and then I simply screwed on the brass drain. It's pretty sweet right? It looks awesome.
Adding a handle to the lid helps with the opening and the closing of the cooler. You
can add a little flare to the rustic cooler by adding a bottle cap opener to the front.
And for me, I also added bottle cap receptacle to the side where you can throw your bottle
caps.
Okay. That's it. That's how you build an awesome-looking rustic cooler like this one here. You can
store your beer in it. You can have an awesome party. You can put kids' drinks in it if you
want. But in the end, I think you have a really awesome-looking party piece set. It gives
you something to talk about at your next get-together.
So let me know if you have any questions in the comments. Thanks for watching the video.
Remember, you can always click the thumbs up button over on YouTube so that other people
can watch this video. And you could also subscribe in my channel by clicking the subscribe button.
So, thanks again. Have a great day. Take care.