How to Create a Simple Shelf Over a Doorway
I was sitting at our dining room table and I noticed how bare the wall looked between our dining room and our living room. We went over plans to make a book shelf around the whole doorway (hello $1,000 project!) so we opted for something smaller and more budget friendly!
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| Finished project! |
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Items Needed:
- 12"x1"x6' pre-cut board - Bought from Home Depot ($6.00)
- 8 foot long quarter round or moulding - Bought from Home Depot ($4.99)
- Two wood crates - Bought from Michaels (regular price $13.99 with weekly coupon $9.00 each)
- Two brackets of your choice - we chose vintage metal ones we already owned
- Ivory paint - we already owned from our trim color
- Stain and stain cloths for crates - Bought from Menards ($4.00)
- Gorilla glue and clamps
- OR nail gun and wood putty
- Decor to fill in crates
Directions:
- When purchasing the wood use the cutting station in the wood aisle to pre-cut your quarter round. You will need to cut it at angles to fit together around the edges of your board. If you don't have experience with this, simply ask an employee to help. They have plenty of experience and if they mess up you won't have to purchase the piece. If you come home and miss the cut you will have to go back and purchase a new piece of quarter round.
- Set up sawhorses or use two objects of the same height like garbage cans to balance your board and quarter round on.
- Paint the board on both sides but leave the edges as-is since you are attaching quarter round to the board. Paint the quarter round on the front side that will face out only.
- Attach the cut quarter round pieces using either Gorilla Glue or a nail gun. If you don't have access to a nail gun - use Gorilla glue on all three pieces and use a clamp to secure the pieces to the edge of the board. Let it sit overnight. OR If you have a nail gun place the nails 6 inches apart and fill the holes with a small amount of putty. Make sure to smooth it out and touch it up with paint!
- Screw brackets into wall at desired height - we chose to align the board with the top of our trim work around the doorway. It gave an extra inch of support on the back side of the board as well as the support of the brackets.
- Place your board on top of the brackets and admire your finished shelf!
Directions for Wood Crates:
- Once the shelf is in place it's time to stain your crates! Of course
you can use whatever you would like but this was a cheap alternative to
our original idea. Make sure to have crates on an old towel you don't mind having stains on.
- We liked the rough look of the crates but if you want a smoother finish make sure to sand down the rough patches
- Apply stain with stain cloths to desired color. We used two light coats just to make sure it filled in all the cracks.
- Make sure to go over every part and get the stain in all the edges.
- Let dry overnight - they will have a distinct smell from the stain for a few days but I promise it will wear off!
- Place crates on shelf!
Above is our original boring wall leading from our dining room to our living room. It was in serious need of a makeover!
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| Brackets screwed into wall and lined up with door frame |
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| Finished shelf placed over doorway |
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| Close up of the quarter round we used |
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| We used Minwax stain in Red Oak from Menards for the crates |
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| Inside of finished stained crate |
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| Outside of stained crate - Remember all the edges! |
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| Decor on the right side of shelf |
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| The globe was my mother's from the 1950's! |
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| Decor on the left side of shelf! |
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| Finally finished! |
Total out of pocket costs for this project = $33.00!
Below you can see where I bought some of our decor for our shelf and crates! Some items like the globe and books were reuses from our current decor stash! Comment with questions!
Stay Crafty!
Rina
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