best friend: Semi-homemade DIY shelf

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Semi-homemade DIY shelf

Hello everyone! I'm joining Kimba's DIY party over at A Soft Place to Land for a little show and tell about my most recent project for my kitchen. I'm calling this shelf "semi-homemade" since I already had some gorgeous factory made corbels...just had to purchase some trim and a board for the shelf top. Here's a peek at the finished product holding some of my favorite white ironstone and pottery....all decked out for the holidays!

The corbels were given to me by our local lumberyard a few years back when we were building our house. The architect ordered the wrong style/size, and since they were a custom color/glaze, they were not returnable to the manufacturer. Yay me!

I went to my nearest home store (only 130 miles away!) and found some trim, which I think may actually be chair rail, and a nice hardwood board for the shelf top.

After calculating and measuring for size, I cut my pieces and began gluing and nailing (I've come to love my nail gun!) This may not seem like a terribly difficult project to you, and truthfully, it wasn't.....but you must understand, angles and me...we don't always get along so well. I figure that's why somebody created wood filler!!

Here it is in it's assembled, wood-filled state:

I knew I could never replicate the factory finish on the corbels, so I decided to create my own. I used Kilz spray primer in white to coat the entire piece. After drying, I lightly sanded it with fine grit paper and fine steel wool. Paint? Nope...just primer! The finish after the steel wool was perfectly smooth.

I then coated the entire piece with Ralph Lauren's smoke-tinted glaze, thanks to the gals over at Shanty to Chic for sharing one of their secret weapons! I left some of the glaze in the crevices of the corbels and it just naturally soaked into the imperfections on the trim, the rest I wiped off lightly.