There are few things I love more than a great DIY project. Although sometimes mine take many more hours and dollars than expected, knowing you created this piece, in the end, is well worth the cost.
If you're an obsessive
Pinner like me, you may have spotted the love shelf recently. The "
Original LOVE Shelf" (pictured above), was created by a woman who sells on Etsy. As a sucker for anything involving hearts or love (pathetic, I know), I knew I had to DIY one for myself. Last week, my boyfriend was making a trip to Home Depot so I decided to tag along and pick up supplies.
Getting the wood into the Jeep was the first obstacle. Good thing I grew up with a Dad who would stuff me and my sister in the car with a house-worth of wood and tools every weekend. I think the people in
Home Depot look at me weird when I walk in and take a big whiff; I freaking love the smell of Home Depot. Thanks Dad!
Anywho, once I got the supplies home, we broke out the saw and got to work. I worked really hard...
I almost failed calculus in college, so it's no surprise that my doodle of a sketch plan failed us at first.
"
Measure twice, cut once" wasn't the motto followed here (sorry Dad). Thankfully, the boyfriend is a smarty and adjusted my measurements. The most difficult part was cutting the angle for the "V" correctly. If we had done it my way, trial and error, I definitely would have run out of wood quickly.
Once each piece was cut to the correct length, I
laid it out on the deck. (Okay, well obviously it's missing a letter at this point, but you get the idea!)
Next, I found some advice online about how to
distress and age new wood. I had made the random selection at Home Depot to buy two 2x8x8 boards; they are knotty, but smooth, and heavy as heck. So, to distress the cut boards, I put a bunch of nails in a plastic bag and swung at them. As nails flew all over the deck, I realized I should probably double bag these sharp little guys. That worked much better. I also used a Dremel with two different tips to create larger
gashes and rough up the ends of each block. If you don't have a Dremel, I suggest finding someone that does. The effect, especially for the ends of the blocks, made the biggest aging impact!
After beating the blocks, the second step in aging wood is to
stain it. First, I brewed black tea and covered each block. That had to dry overnight, queue Jeopardy music...
I was disappointed in the result of the tea stain. The instructions I
read called for black tea, and I realized that regular old Lipton tea is
"black tea", so I used that. Maybe it was not strong enough for the
right result. In any case, that didn't matter, and I suggest skipping
the tea all together.
Move right along to this nasty mixture: white vinegar and steel wool. Be sure to buy real steel wool, and not the S.O.S stuff for cleaning. (Shh, I made that mistake at first.) In typical Kaitlin fashion, I did not use an exact measurement of vinegar and wool. I just poured some in a bucket and put 4 steel wool pads in. I barely used any of the mixture, so note to self, use a lot less next time! My entire shelf could have been covered with about 1 cup of vinegar and 1-2 steel wool pads.
I love the end result of the vinegar and steel wool stain! It got darker and darker with time, which was interesting to watch. In the picture above, the board on the left is fresh wood, the bottom board is after the vinegar stain sat for 5 minutes, and the top right is after 25 minutes. The color wound up a rough chocolate brown. (In the tutorial I had read online, the wood looked more gray than brown, I'm not sure why my wood wound up dark brown, maybe the excess wool in my mixture.)
And that's what I have so far! Steps 1-5 are complete. As of today, my wood blocks are sitting in the kitchen drying out and waiting to be nailed together. I cannot wait to create the final product! If this post is any indication, you don't have to be an expert to DIY something. A helping hand from a smart friend is nice, but sometimes you just have to try, see what happens, and go with the flow. (And maybe take 3 trips to Home Depot, 2 CVS runs, and re-cut 4 blocks of wood.)
Look out for Part II of this DIY Love Shelf soon!
