Upcycled Shelf Unit

Think Shabby and Chippy

This solid maple shelf unit is well traveled.  Someone left it behind in a house I rented in Dawson Creek.  At that stage, it had two little doors which looked like shutters.  I took those off, intending to rework them to have glass in instead.  They were never seen again.

upcyled-shelf-unit600x900.jpg

Since my style these days is rustic and shabby I decided that I would paint this beast (horrors!  Paint solid wood?)

I also thought it needed something a little more, shall we say, unique?

So, the piece was sanded a little to rough up the finish which is some kind of polyurethane sealer.  I like my velvet finish interior latex paint, so that's what I painted it with.

Halfway through that, I had a brainstorm.  Why not add some decorative trim that I salvaged from a fancy mirror to emulate a French country look?

Fancy trim salvaged from a mirror

A trip to the greenhouse was a dead end.  No longer did I have the little wings that I was looking for.  Instead, all that was left was one corner piece, not what I had envisioned.

I looked at it, and decided that I could cut it up to be a straight piece to go on the top of the shelf unit.  Here's what it looked like after I cut it up a bit;

The first cut is the hardest one...

I discovered that you can do curved cuts with the scroll saw.

That should work, what do you think?

Temporarily fitted together...

Letting glue on the decorative trim dry...

Then the pieces were glued in place on the unit, and left to dry while I put on a second coat of white paint. 

I will take a bit of sandpaper to the fancy ornate trim to take off some of the white, leaving the gold paint visible.

The jars hold staples like oats, rice and soup mix...

Of course, this is all temporary because my kitchen is a work in progress.  Who knows what the final result will be?  For now, eclectic, country and shabby is the main theme.


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