Sunset Coast: nursery

Sunday, June 23, 2013

DIY Baby Room Nursery Shelf

It's Sunday already! I want to share this precious baby shelf I made as a gift to a friend that is expecting! Actually, I made 2 of them.

2 women in my Tuesday sewing class are expecting babies. Mimi is having twins and Jasmine is having a surprise. Most of us in sewing are past child bearing years, (geeze that sounds OLD!!!) so we're all excited for them to have their babies.

I wanted to make them something special and had most of the materials already on hand. Moms can always use a little shelf with hanging hooks for a new baby as part of their nursery decor.
So with some imagination and a few tools, I came up with this sweet baby gift. Here's the basic how to's!

I had some more of the wide baseboard molding, used previously in this hall hook project. A little more of this fence board used in my beachy bathroom towel hanger was put to use.

A little note about tools. I have some basic power tools that I have used for many things around the house. I love the drill for obviously drilling holes, but I also use the attachments for screwing things in like knobs and curtain rods. The jigsaw is easy to use and fine for small things. It's not perfectly accurate but fine for this little shelf. My electric sander gets the most use, because I use it to sand furniture for painting. These 3 power tools have been great to have and I don't feel like I'm going to cut off any limbs with the jigsaw.

First I cut the molding in half with the jigsaw, making 2- 19 inch long pieces, 1 for each shelf. I cut the fence board 19 inches also for the actual shelf part. I gave the shelf a little detail by cutting off 1 inch across each front corner. (see photo).

Then I attached the shelf top to the molding with some glue and finishing nails. I smoothed out the rough edges with my electric sander too.

I had bought a scrap of 2inch by 2inch lumber and cut it into cubes, 4 for each shelf. I attached those under the front of the shelf with glue and screwed them in from the back of the wide molding. I wanted them to act as support for the shelf top.

All that was pretty easy!

On to the painting.... First a coat of good old primer. After priming, I decided that I needed to caulk around the blocks and a few other cracks. Then I painted everything with a coat of white latex paint.

While the paint was drying, I painted the 3 wood knobs for each shelf, to act as hooks . I just used pink, green and blue acrylic paints.

I like to put the screws in the knobs to hold them while I paint, then I stick them into some foam I had, to dry. You can also stick them into the top of a box to hold them while drying.

Almost done! I painted the little blocks with acrylic paints.

I used my sander to distress everything a bit. Nothing like a little distressing to hide the not-so-perfect carpentry. And it looks so quaint and shabby chic!

Attached the knobs, gave it a coat of polyurethane, (I used satin) and the darling little baby shelves were done and ready for gifting.

I have to say this was a fun and easy project. I sure had fun creating these baby shelves and I hope the moms and babies enjoy them for years to come!

Thanks for dropping by the Sunset Coast workshop ...

Have a Crafty Day!