Month: November 2018

How I Series-PH Shelves

After our inaugural trip in Peggy Hill, we noticed that we could benefit from some more counter space, for storage in particular.  Get a few boozehounds in there and the bottles start to stack up pretty quickly!  With so much real estate on the backsplash over the stove, I decided some shelves would be nice to help get things off of the counter.

I dug around the garage and made a Sunday project out of designing some super simple shelves with some found scrap wood.  The goal was to make some shelves without spending any money.  And to reduce, reuse, and recycle baby!

shelves for Peggy Hill 3

I happened to have some varying boards, but I also wanted the top shelf to be smaller since the plan was to put some spice jars on the top shelf and bigger things like wine bottles and paper towels on the bottom shelf.  For the sides of each shelf, I cut two equal pieces, the smaller set at 3″ and the other larger one at 5″, and one long piece at 18″ for each front.

shelves for Peggy Hill

The corners were attached using butt joints with wood glue.  I am okay with a more rustic look on these so don’t mind the less than perfect wood or less than perfect quality.

I attached a bottom to them which was some rigid corrugated plastic sign material leftover from some garage sale signs that I stapled to the frame. Designer tip! Don’t do that! It turned out to be a bad idea because it was not sturdy enough and sagged pretty quickly with some weight on it.  No crash, but not strong for sure.  OOPS!

shelves for Peggy Hill 2

The garage sale sign bottoms were replaced with some 1/4″ thick trim wood I got at the HD and cut to the right length.  So much for my free project!  Ha, they never are around here!  I attached them to the wall using some L brackets so hopefully, they are sturdy and well supported now.

I found some cutie little spice jars from World Market for the top shelf and have enough room on the bottom for a roll of paper towels, my vintage cracker can of cooking utensils, and room still for a couple of bottles…wine or other!  I am quite proud of the way they turned out.  Now I just hope they don’t fall apart or fall down!

Peggy Hill shelves

The basic butt joint construction used on these shelves is one of the simplest since it merely involves cutting the wood to the right length and butting them together.  I used this same basic technique, but with wider boards and some nails, to make benches for a clubhouse I had in the 6th grade!  So easy!  Just keep in mind that it is not the strongest joint, so depending on your situation you may need to brace it or add additional support.

Peggy Hill kitchen view

In fact, this same construction was used for the valance I made for the window treatment in my master bedroom.  Using that same butt joint technique to assemble the valance board, I then covered it in padding and stapled my fabric onto it.  So simple to do.

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Who else has used this method to build something special?

It’s been cold and rainy here lately which usually triggers a sudden need to bake. Wanting to make a vintage camper cake, I started looking for other camper cake examples and was a little scared to see so many beautifully sculpted miniature camper cake replicas.  While I enjoy decorating cakes, I am not the best […]

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The palm tree light fixture in my dining room was my most recent find for said room.  I saw it at an antique shop down in the design center and admired it once, wondering if it was just too silly?  Then close to a year later I saw it again.  I’d been hoping to see […]

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A close friend gave me a sweet gift of two posters from one of my favorite singers, Citizen Cope.  These colorful posters had a spot reserved in the hall bathroom but lacked frames.  I have searched on and off for frames for literally six months and haven’t found anything I really like.  Recently, as I […]

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The most recent addition to the fam is Stella Buttacup, aka Stella B!  She is a vintage 1959 Shasta Airflyte with silver wings and still has all original lighting and interior appliances; a mini fridge, a three burner stove with an oven, plus the original sink and faucet, plus some cute new curtains and exterior rope […]

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