Condo Blues: Wraparound Recycled Fence Wall Shelves

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Wraparound Recycled Fence Wall Shelves

I don’t have the floor space in the craft room/guest room to add storage shelves for my mountain of craft, art, and DIY supplies. What is a girl to do?

If you can’t build out build up.

Instead of adding artwork to the wall above my craft and sewing tables, I put that wall to work with a set of shelves that wrap around the walls.


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This is the space I am working with.


wraparoundshelvesBEFORE
Why yes, that is an autographed photo of Mink Stole as Taffy Davenport from the movie Female Trouble (learn more about one of my favorite trashy movies here.) How kind of you to notice!


(Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)

Husband often gave me The Eye when we had to maneuver around my stack of broken wooden fence boards in the garage. After copious measurements and a few calculations, I knew I could solve both of our problems by repurposing the fence boards into mitered wall shelves.

I had the luxury of installing the wall anchors and shelf brackets for this project  before I painted the guest room/craft room bright yellow. This way I can measure and mark the wall if need (and it was needed) be to make sure I install the wall anchors in either a stud or with a heavy duty wall anchor. This was an excellent plant because I had to re position a few of the brackets after checking if I installed them level.

hangshelfbrackets
Measuring, installing, and verifying if the brackets are level is time consuming but important. Taking your time with this step will making the rest of the project go smoother.

After determining how long I wanted each wall shelf, I cut a mini miter template with my miter saw from scrap wood to check the angle of the mitered cuts. This is the first major project where I cut mitered corners and needed to make sure every cut was perfect. I didn't have extra reclaimed wood if I made a mistake. No pressure!

mitershelftemplate
The miter saw settings are perfect. Time to cut a bunch of recycled boards!

I unloaded the guest/craft room into every. single. room. in. the. house.

pilesinhallway
This photo is to show that some parts of the house suffer to make my blog photos Pinterest Perfect. Feel better now?

I prepped the damaged walls for paint and painted the room with Glidden 2 in 1 Paint + Primer (learn more about the paint here) color matched to Dutch Boy’s Crayola Yellow.


Yellow!

I spray painted the shelf brackets black to coordinate with the antique enamel top table I use as a craft table. My mom and uncle ate breakfast at this table every day when they were little.

After the paint dried, I quick like a bunny rehung the shelf brackets, temporarily laid the cut boards on top of the brackets, and reloaded the room because we expected guests.

It stayed this way for 8 months until life gave me time to finish the project. Oops.

writewalldirectionsontape
Keeping track of the shelf parts and where they hang on the wall by writing notes on painter’s tape is a smart idea. Lisa, you know painter’s tape is not a substitute for proper joinery, right?

Lacey’s right. Painter’s tape is not going to make a strong shelf. However, joining two boards using pocket hole screws (they look like this) made with a Kreg pocket hole jig like this one will. I used Post-it Notes to make sure I drilled the pocket holes in the correct places because I’m not used to using this jig yet. It feels a little upside down and backward sometimes.

drillshelfpocketholes
That’s not to say I didn’t shower Husband with a thousand kisses when I opened the box on Christmas morning and found a Kreg pocket hole jig set. It means I have to get used to it by doing more pocket hole projects.

A bazillion pocket holes and pocket screws later, I made a set of shelves from reclaimed wood.


Laceysuperves
Nice job Lisa! I’ll help you remove the painter’s tape before you permanently install the shelves. You can pay me in lamb chops. I will also accept buffalo burgers if you are out of lamb. I’m flexible.

I screwed the shelves to the brackets.  I painted the silver screw with black craft paint so they blend in with the brackets. 

wraparoundfenceboardshelves
Welcome to my wall of wraparound reclaimed wood shelves. Let’s hear it for mitered wall shelves. Whoo!

Next up. Organizing my hot mess of craft supplies and and loading them on to shelves.

sortorganizecraftsupplies
This is going to take awhile…

If you don’t hear from me after a while, send a search party. I’m probably buried under a mound of glue, craft paint, and bottle caps waiting for a repurpose.

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