We spent a good 2 hours at Lowe's on Sunday morning. One of our favorite places to go on dates. While my husband planned and bought the materials he needed to build a base cabinet for our dishwasher I picked out shelves, then spent time on Pinterest, Lowes.com, and walking the aisles and came up with a better idea. I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, and if you know me I rarely settle for not exactly what I wanted. So I decided I'd make the shelves I want!
We ended up getting these support brackets from Lowe's. They have them in all kinds of materials and styles, but I really wanted something simple. You can head over to Lowes.com to look at their great selection! The ones in the link say they are 6.5 inches, but ours are actually 8. I didn't check on this, so make sure you do your own measuring before you purchase anything!
Then we picked out an untreated 2 x 8 x 12 board. Our kitchen cabinets come out a little over a foot, and I wanted our open shelving to come out 4-5 inches less than the cabinets. Because they are on the end of our kitchen that is very much open concept, I didn't want it to feel like it was being obtrusive into the openness.
We spend about $27 on the materials for this. It was SO simple. The brackets came with screws and anchors, and we already had the stain at home. We went back and forth on what color to do the shelves - black, white, or wood. In the end we decided white wouldn't make a statement because our cabinets were white, black might be too heavy for such a light kitchen, and we really don't need another wood tone in our kitchen. So we decided to stain them the same color as our butcher block counter tops - but instead of doing 3 coats of stain just do one.
As expected the hardest part about these shelves was trying to hang them straight. I usually don't even attempt to hang things straight, but since hubby was so hard at work I figured I would try to make myself useful. I measured to hang the first shelf in line with the bottom of our cabinets. Then I measured, and measured, and used our level, and did the angles, and level again and measure again --- and I think I got them pretty straight! At least the level says so. Here's my progress of hanging them up - and you can see the cabinet progress too ! ha.
I measured the boards out and then had Steven cut them with his table saw. They were 22.2 inches long, they touch the trim of the window and end at the same spot the countertops do. That way our kitchen has an 'end point', instead of just being so open.. they really helped define the kitchen borders. After I knew they were the right length, and straight, I sanded them and stained them with dark walnut by Minwax. After they dried we screwed them into the brackets and that was it! It was SO SO easy, seriously anyone could do this! Each bracket said it would hold 80lbs, so each shelf should hold 160lbs. Not that I would put even put that much weight on them, but it is good to know they are sturdy enough to hold our dishes. After they were up I decorated them! I know I need some warm texture up there, I only have glass right now and it's a bit.. cool to say the least. I haven't had the time to spend making them perfect. But here are some pictures of the finished project!
Now that you've seen how simple this was I hope that you go put together some shelving where you need it! Although a kitchen is a great place for open shelving, the bathroom is another wonderful place! It would also be super fun to decorate them in the bathroom!
I hope you all are having a wonderful week - and of course, email me if you have any questions about this! info@kasselhomeandcottage.com
Xoxo
Brittney
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