Rustic wooden chest

A really really early project of mine. It's been standing in my parents basement for a long time but now I've brought it home. I got the inspiration from various pictures on the internet and now that my fiancee has got a airbrush, maybe I could add some embelishment / text on it. We'll see.

This crate was originally a stash for holding different types of firework, it had a warning-lable on one side and the kind of spray on letters that was kinda charming, but it lacked that extra "oomph" and that being the paint. So I removed the lable as much as I could and then sandpapered the whole thing. The problem being a small wooden stick sticking out from inside of it.

I used some leftover white paint my parents had and everytime I dipped the brush in the paint, I also dipped it in a little bit of water. Wanting to save muself some work, I tought I would only do one layer of paint but that did not look as good, So I ended up doing maybe 2 or 3, I can't really remeber. And I didn't know what to do with the wooden part sticking out, so I just kinda left it and didn't paint the insides.

I still don't know what to do. Any suggestions?