Easiest Shelves Ever!

Easiest Shelves EVER!

Perusing Pinterest I came across the perfect shelving solution to our big-long wall problem. Here is the link to my (P)inspiration: http://www.tysonandjanessaparker.blogspot.com/2013/10/diy-picture-ledges.html - You'll notice in her directions she does say that you should purchase a higher grade wood to have less sanding and warping, in other words less headaches! I heeded this advice and it made my job so easy!

Before shot~Boring wall... and don't mind the stingray!

Material Girl~
Materials you'll need to make 2 • 3' shelves and 2 • 5' shelves (2 • 8' shelves cut down) is as follows:

Purchased Select Pine Board from Home Depot

2 • 1" x 2" x 8' boards for front lip 

2 • 1" x 3" x 8' board for bottom

2 • 1" x 4" x 8' board for back 

nail gun

paintable caulk

paint

screws

level

stud finder

screwdriver and necessary bits

Steps for Production:

Cut all pieces down at a 3' mark. Now you'll have a 3' piece and a 5' piece of each width of wood. Nail the 3" strip to the 4" strip making an L shape (back and bottom).Then nail the front 2" strip to the assembled "L" piece for a front lip. This will secure your items on the shelf.

This is what it will look like:

one of these is different than the others... lol

Next step is to caulk over the indents from the nail gun. Once this has dried I lightly sand and paint white for a smooth finish. I did two coats on the tops and sides in one day with about an hour in between for drying time. The next day I painted two coats on the bottoms, again with about an hour in between for drying time.
Literal time frame for this project was 3 days, however one could complete it in the same day if you had the time. I did the cutting and assembly on day one (Wednesday after work). Day two I sanded and painted (Thursday after work). Day three I finished up by painting the bottoms and hung (Friday after work).
That's it!

Hang it Man~
After everything was painted I then went to the wall where it would be installed and roughly drew marks where I wanted them. I held the shelf up to the wall and asked my hubster what he thought of the placement. Once we had good placement, (distance from the top and bottom of the T.V. with enough space in the middle for the art pieces) I took our 6' level and drew a straight line. On that line I marked out my studs using my stud finder. Then I held up my shelves to the wall and drew a faint mark at each point that there would be a stud and pre-drilled a hole. Then I just started the screws in their hole till they were flush with the backside of the shelves, then held it up and simply screwed it in.

Once the shelves were all up I took a small paint brush and the same white paint and painted over the screws. Contrary to my P'inspiration link, I did this because I didn't put a ton of art on the shelves and you would be able to see the screws.

Viola!

Here is the finished product! I think this was the easiest shelf project that I've ever done and pretty cheap! Total project cost: $26.62 (not including tax). This cost is just for the wood. We had all other materials necessary to complete this cool project!

Panned out for you! (don't mind the clutter after all, we do live here ;)

It is so inexpensive and adds an outstanding look!

Have fun with your DIY project and don't be afraid to be creative!

All because two people fell in love~

Let me think this over...
Here was a project that I contemplated for months. I had an idea of what I wanted but not sure exactly how to collaborate a substrate and design. I wanted to somehow have a custom piece of art that had years of importance in our lives but didn't want to do the long horizontal piece of wood with just the month, date, and year, I wanted it to be truly unique.Then after a long time of browsing Pinterest (of course!) I saw my inspiration! Here is the link to it: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/563724078333211396/

Instead of the letters I will use numbers. Those numbers are to represent the important years in my and my husband's lives. The years are; my husband's birth year, my birth year, the year we started dating, the year we were engaged, the year we were married, the year we had our son, and the year we had our daughter, with two blank ones for a symmetric look. On top of having the years I also put the month, time (Dating 07' and Engagement 09's times are approximations) and what street each event took place on.

The difficult part of this DIY project was what substrate to use. The inspired-from art piece is made up of old subway signs and are metal. I may have had access to sheet metal and a way to cut/bend it but I did not really want to work with metal. My luck, I would cut myself in the process.
So I decided to use wood! I love wood! Wood is inexpensive, easy to work with, and can be manipulated as far as the finish.

Pre-planning~
Before I really got ahead of myself I also needed to figure out how I was going to get the numbers on the wood. I found a great technique on... yup you guessed it, Pinterest! https://www.pinterest.com/pin/563724078333182295/
From the Pin I went to the person's blog to read the step by step instructions on painting and waxing for a weathered finish. On the blog she talks about how to do the old/distressed look but doesn't really go into the depth that I, a first timer, needed. Because of this lack of information I do what I do best, improvise! I went to Joann Fabric and asked if they had wax, and they did not. Keep in mind that I thought the wax that was used was a colored wax... I was directed to Hobby Lobby for wax. When searching in the store I asked an associate to point me in the direction of wax and she brought me to an isle of large blocks of wax and colored shavings. Not what I was looking for at all. As we were discussing what I was looking for we talked about the project, my expectation for an outcome and so on. And, what to my surprise, I was talking to a self proclaimed distress-er! She informed me that I would use paint but the wax is used to coat the wood so the paint doesn't stick in certain areas, then you simply scrape off the wax and that scrapes off the paint. Thank goodness for a little divine intervention :)
So now I know I have an old candle at home all I needed was some great paint colors and wood.
I purchased three colors from Hobby lobby; Desert Turquoise, Spiced Pumpkin Orange, and Tuscan Red. I added additional colors from home navy blue. All very trendy and Americana brand paint.

Wood ya know~
To start off I went to Homedepot and found 1" x 12" x 10' common board which I had cut down in ten equal pieces. With the cuts from the blades (1/8") the last piece was shorter than 12" but that was just fine because I only needed nine pieces. Now that I have my wood I needed to stain it to prep it for my paint/wax. I still had some left over stain from numerous other project, many in the basement, so I just used more up.

Do I look familiar or what?

Ouch my hand hurts!
I had printed each art template and taped each one onto each board. Then with a pen I traced the words and numbers on each piece of wood. This way I could see the light indentation on the panel after I had done the painting. After one of these my hand was seriously cramping, but I shake it off and forge ahead. I am the type of person who likes to see instant results so instead of tracing all nine, I decided to complete the first panel.

Here is the Technique~
The technique that I gathered between the blog and the associate at Hobby Lobby goes as follows.

1st: rub wax where you don't want paint (I take the taper candle and randomly rub it over the front surface of my square)

2nd: Paint brush strokes over the entire surface with your multiple colors, not to overlap and make purple or brown everywhere. After the paint was freshly dry I took an old wash cloth and rubbed down the entire front surface. This removed most of the paint where the wax was and blended the paint in some areas. However, I did not scrape off all the wax. You can do what ever you want to do, for my project I was ok with the wax remaining on the surface because it was clear enough.

3rd: Paint on the wording and numbers in a different color. I had a small sample of a bright green left over from my dog house project, so this is what I used. Plus the green went well in the basement with it being a color in our new throw pillows and ottomans.

4th: Rub down with Murphy's Oil Soap. This step was taken from the blog. I'm unsure if it made that much of a difference but the colors sure did pop once rubbed down. I also don't know if it has any preservation qualities but thought, what the heck!

Wall before~... Boring!

But before you hang~
I wanted the installing of the wood be as trouble free as possible so I took a piece of cardboard and made a template, a small hole in the upper corner. This hole would be my pre-drill hold. Next I pre-drilled all my squares and hand screwed in screws so then when it came to installation I wouldn't have to deal with splitting wood or the placement of the boards shifting because of having to get through the wood first. I flipped the cardboard upside down for the opposite corner as to have uniform holes on all my pieces.

Installation~
Last part of the big project was installing the installation! I had contemplated on how to hang these squares perfectly level and all an equal distance apart. I had scored a large piece of paper from a box of frames that I purchased, but drawing the lines on it to hang on the wall proved to be pretty difficult with a toddler walking or crawling on the paper, and it not being quite big enough.

My next "bright" idea was to ask my husband to print out a template of all the squares and I would hang that on the wall. Unfortunately, this is just another dilemma I ran into. The printer he has access to is only 36" wide, and I need at least 40". So my brain finally kicks into high gear and I come up with a brilliant idea. I simply went on Illustrator and made a document that was the size of my wall and put in the squares at the distance I wanted them apart, 3", and then made measurements from the wall and ceiling to each row, and viola, I had all my measurements.

Next step in the installation was to draw small hash marks in from the wall at the distance my illustrator document shows, and with a six foot level that doubled as a straight edge I drew a grid.
The moment I've (and you've) been waiting for... this was almost too easy! Since I had my straight/level edge and my squares pre-drilled with screws already in place I just had to get on the ladder and screw them into the wall.

Here is the final product! 
I have to say that the look wasn't exactly what I had in mind going into the project but I really love the way this turned out! The final touch was to go back with some paint and cover up the lines that were showing after my pieces were installed.

Here's the skinny on the cost...
1" x 12" x 10' Wood: $10.99
Stain: Free
Background paint: 1.79 each x 3 = $5.66
Additional background paint: Free
Green wording paint: Free
Screws: Free (used some old drywall screws)
Murphy's Oil Soap: $4.18
Wax (candle): Free
TOTAL PROJECT COST (including tax):  $20.83
Having a custom piece of art that you created: (cheesy) Priceless!

All Dresser-ed Up-

All Dresser-ed Up!
Refinishing an old dresser is easier than you think!

Ever since I first saw this old beat up dresser in the basement of my "boyfriends" house I had big plans for it! When we were married the plans became reinforced... and then when we were expecting our second child the dream was going to become a reality-we were going to have a little girl! You see, this dresser was curvy and therefore in my eyes it was feminine. The dresser was shabby, water stained and colored on, and, was in need of some lov'in.

Step by Step~
First I had to sand the dresser down. I started to do this by hand and seemed to be taking a really long time. So I looked at my power tools and decided to try out our oscillating tool that came with a sanding attachment. This worked like a charm! The only tiny draw back is that there is some areas where it looks like the sander scratched the wood. But, on the plus side of that the stain I chose was pretty dark and with the wood grain the scratches are hardly noticeable.

Once I was done with sanding the next step was removing all dust residue from the dresser and the drawer faces. I used HDX tack cloths to accomplish this ($2.68 for a 3 pack). All you do is simply wipe down all surfaces to be stained and discard the cloth. After all the dust was gone I proceeded to stain. I wanted to accomplish a nice dark finish with a hint of red, so the stain I chose was Minwax Red Mahogany to try and match our daughter's crib. For my tools I used an old cotton running event t-shirt, and rubber gloves. I dipped the cloth in the stain, and wiped it on the dresser starting with the top, then sides, front, and then moved to the drawer fronts. I repeated this step approximately three times, each time I wiped on stain I would wipe it off one to three minutes later. The longer you leave stain sit on the raw wood the deeper the color you will achieve, and I wanted it to get as dark as possible with out using black stain. Here is the stain I used.

HomeDepot $6.48/qt.

After I stained I did use a polyurethane clear coat just because I wanted the finished product to be clean and durable since it would be used in a child's room.  I picked up Minwax clear satin poly from HomeDepot. To apply the stain I bought some foam paint brushes which were about .57 cents each. When applying clear coat you have to be careful not to shake the can to avoid bubbles in your clear coat. I applied three coats of poly with a day in between each coat. I probably could have done two of the three coats in the same day but I didn't have enough time. After the first coat I sanded with a fine grit sand paper, used the tack cloth again to remove dust. Repeat on the second coat. Third coat I used a brown paper bag to do a super fine sanding. (tip from a youtube video)

HomeDepot: $10.77/qt

Next step was replacing the bottoms of each dresser drawer. The condition of the drawer bottoms were old, dusty, and had black spots which may have been mold. I purchased three pieces of Hickory project panels from HomeDepot at $14.30 each. The sheets were 24" x 48" and 1/4" thick. I took out the drawer bottoms which took a little tlc. There were little tack nails and glue keeping them in. I did end up breaking part off two drawer bottoms to get them out (which I fixed by pre-drilling tiny holes, then tapping in new tack nails, and wood glue in the middle to help reinforce).Once I had the bottoms out I traced an outline on the new pieces, and cut them out with a jigsaw. Then I slid the new bottoms in and tacked in at an angle on the under-back side.

Last step in finishing the dresser was to replace the drawer pulls. I found these knobs at Hobbylobby.com. They were on sale on their website for $1.99 each plus shipping ($18.89). I chose purple because her room is painted a light purple and no where else in her room had purple.

~Finished Product~ 
Unfortunately, I can not find any of my before photos, so close your eyes and imagine a fawn colored dresser with light purple crayon on the front of the drawers and water marks on the top... otherwise you can't get the jest of how far it came.

Cost break down:
Foam Brushes: $1.77
Drawer pulls: $19.89
Tack Cloth: $2.49
Drawer bottoms: $42.90
Clear Polyurethane: $10.77
Stain: $6.48

Total project cost: $84.30 ~Way cheaper than buying a new solid oak dresser or a moderately priced-cheaply made dresser!