Dining Room Wall Shelving

When we decided to straighten out the dining room, we found a number of options available.  Brackets like these are very popular around the internet, but I don't like the shiny, angular metal for some reason and resisted it.

I fell pretty hard for some aged metal brackets from Anthropologie and Rejuvenation (left), then realized we would need a small fortune to support the length of shelves we were looking to add.  By the time we really researched these, some birch boards were already living in our home and we've chosen to let them hang out rent-free until they can find a job.  We also purchased some metal L-brackets at one point that I planned to paint and then backed away from because it's not possible to buy spray paint in the City of Chicago, (thanks Obama! err, graffiti artists) so would have to trek out to a suburb, the Rustoleum paint we could find was not my real choice of color, oh and I realized I just didn't want to do it.

In the midst of the searches, something clicked and I remembered a project I had seen on a blog we were happy to find this year.  The genius DIY folks at Yellow Brick Home built super sturdy shelves for tool storage, basically 500% heavier than what we would be putting on dining room shelving (and also very similar to our bed frame) so we adapted their plans to our needs.  You should really look at their project for proper instructions, I am nowhere near as exact in this process as I should be.

They used 2x4s to create a frame to fit inside workroom, anchored the frame into the wall studs on three sides, covered both sides of the shelves in plywood and added a face to the front surface, and finished them.  We had only one corner to work with, but significantly smaller scale items, so used 2x2s for framing, anchored into the long wall's studs and used the perpendicular wall for a bit of added support, and framed with some birch that was hanging out unemployed.  We planned it! No, sometimes it just seems like it though.

So everyone knows, we do lots of our work at night when we are supposed to be enjoying our 20s young adulthood.  The entire wall was 8 feet, so we decided to build shelves that were 7 feet long and roughly 8 inches deep.  The first shelf's frame portion was actually cut and built the same night the desk was anti-frankensteined and Alex put it up while I made food a thing.  If you spy, with your little eye, a different looking thermostat, you get a prize! And so did we.  The joy of properly managing our heat.  More on that later.

The following night, Alex was a total genius and used the first existing frame as a ledge to cut down the remaining studs.  #smallhomeproblems We used the remainder of the length and some scraps to cut off additional supports, slightly less than 5 inches each.  Our drill/driver has two rechargeable batteries, but due to the heavy ineffective use by his wingman, we had to call it to charge them and leave the project for a third evening.

Sweet Alex was kind enough to pick work on this back up while I stayed out and about with my dear friend Abbie for birthday lunch and drinks and general Andersonville-ing until 630 (after sponsoring a mini-spa day, to boot!).  I came home and crashed hard, and when I came out, this all had happened.  Well, the shelves had ;) Easily one of the most useful birthday endeavors I have ever seen.  There will be better photos in the future, but we were so excited this was just snapped off on my phone.  Jane was excited we had gotten a lot of our silly human things off of her table, so I did not crop the lower mess out.

We tried a new wood finish for these shelves, and I am so excited about it.  It's Varathane 3x wood stain in Worn Navy.  I prepped the plywood surfaces by sanding down the edges and better flat surface, then gave two coats of Minwax wood conditioner and one coat of the blue stain.  All six panels were done in a night, and we let them dry for a day or two before he assembled all the pieces.  The edging planks were not primed, but they were also a better quality wood and took the stain more evenly than the plywood would have.

I grabbed the 2x2s while I stopped into Ace for some refinishing products (yet another adventure, to be sure) and spent about $30 on them.  The plywood we used was technically underlayment, birch, and one 4'x8' sheet (cut into sixths lengthwise) was about $40.  The long screws and wood conditioner were onhand already, and a new staining brush and the stain ran under $15 together.  So, the whole set of shelves for about $85 seems like a reasonable cost for storage we don't have to move to clean under and nearly doubling our surface space, from 8.75 sq ft to 16.