DIY Open Shelving
One of the first rooms that I wanted to remodel in our house was the dining room. We sold our 30 year old dining set, had my talented nephew design and build a new table, bought a new buffet, and painted the walls. Since we went with a buffet instead of China cabinet, the wall above it needed something. We decided to go with open shelving and heck, why not make them ourselves. I knew that what I wanted was simple in design and in a color that went with the other wood tones in the room.
I bought an eight foot long 2″x 8″ pine board at my Lowe’s store. When deciding to make shelves, take a minute to think about the types of things you will want to display. Most boards come in 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 inch widths. I went with an 8 inch wide board. It would be wide enough to display most decor, while not looking too heavy . Be sure to check the board to make sure it is straight and has as few knot holes as possible.
We cut the 8 foot board in half for two 4 foot shelves. The board that we purchased already had the edges rounded, so we sanded the ends to match. I used an orbital sander with an 80 grit sand paper to get any of the rough spots evened out (around the knots and on the edges). The second round of sanding was with a finish sandpaper of 220 grit. Wipe off the shelves between each sanding and when finished with a damp cloth.
My new table is made out of Hickory and stained with Minwax Wood Finish Penetrating Stain in Dark Walnut. The stain gives the wood a nice warm color without being too dark. Remember I said earlier that I bought a Pine board for my shelves? I forgot some advice that I got a long time ago from my dad. Stain color will look differently on every type of wood. When I put the first coat of stain on the Pine board, it was a lot darker than color of my table. My heart dropped. I didn’t want to stop the project and I didn’t want to buy a new board. I left the boards to dry in hopes that they would lighten up.
Once the boards were dry I brought them into the dining room to see how “off” they looked. In the end, they were not as dark as I feared (the difference between a low lit basement and a much brighter dining room), and they matched the top of the buffet. Thank goodness the crisis was resolved!
***ADVICE ALERT*** – Try your stain on a scrap piece of wood of the same type as your project. It will give you a good idea of how it will look on your project and you can change colors before it’s too late!
The brackets I chose came from Amazon. If you go to the Amazon website, and search “shelf brackets”, you will find brackets of every color, size, and style. I really just wanted something clean and simple in black. These floating modern industrial style were perfect.
These brackets also came with all the hardware needed to hang the shelves. I like that you could screw the shelves on to the bracket if you wanted to make them more secure.
When you are ready to hang your brackets, try to find the studs in the wall to screw the brackets. We use a stud finder (insert corny line here). Scott, in the photo below, is marking the wall where he found the studs. It will light up when you are at the stud. I chose to center my shelves between two studs.
I’m in love with how these shelves turned out even with the scare of the stain color. This project overall was fairly easy to accomplish. It can be done in a couple of days (the most time consuming is letting the stain dry)
If you decide to create some shelves of your own, let me know how they turn out!
