You've probably guessed by now that recycling is a big part of our life. A while ago friends offered us some kiwifruit crates that they had been given and were breaking apart for firewood. In the same batch were a few other goodies including discarded pallet collars (the bits of wood used around fragile contents of pallets to ensure they don't get damaged in transit).

The raw kiwifruit box is made up on a number of 12mm x 90mm boards along with a few other corner pieces and two runners. I was mainly interested in the boards.

The first project was to build drawers to increase the storage capacity and utility of the cupboards in the kitchen.

The sides are pallet collars (19mm x 190mm pine boards) and there is a routed slot about 7mm from the bottom of each side where the kiwifruit box boards are slotted into place. If you look closely you can see the printing from the side of the kiwifruit in the centre board.

Once we'd solved our immediate storage problem there were a number of short boards left over. We had discussed building some shelving for our DVD collection, and of course we thought of the kiwifruit boxes again. While on one of our many visits to second-hand shops I'd seen a book of woodworking projects and flicking through I came across a shelf built around the chinese puzzle. Looking at the small boards I saw a way of creating an interesting shelving system while utilising what would otherwise end up as kindling.

The puzzle part is at the top but it was a little small, so I built a more conservative bottom half to bring it up to eye level.