Our Kitchen Shelf

Tom and I had a big empty wall in our kitchen, so we decided to fill the space with a shelf. Tom inherited a butcher block from his grandmother, so I wanted something wooden to tie in with the butcher block. I knew what I was looking for, a deep shelf with pegs that we could hang stuff from.

Our mission to find the shelf began at a local unfinished furniture store. We found a shelf that was the right length and depth, but it did not have pegs.

Tom immediately refused the shelf because it was poorly constructed and stapled together. Tom and I subsequently left the unfinished furniture store and headed to a home improvement store, where we quickly learned that the lumber necessary to build a shelf cost more than the shelf at the unfinished furniture store. Tom responded by heading to the hardware aisle and purchased some screws. Our new plan was to purchase the shelf at the unfinished furniture store, take it apart, and put it back together, correctly. We purchased the shelf, some pegs, and some wood plugs and went home.

In terms of taking the shelf apart, Tom was easily able to pull the shelf apart, which I found kind of disturbing. I am not going to name the unfinished furniture company that we went to, but I am also never going to return to purchase furniture from the store either. I distressed each piece of the shelf with rocks, a meat tenderizer, and just overall abuse. Distressing is awesome, you should try it some time. Tom drilled holes in the cross piece and I attached the pegs with a bit of wood glue. We then reassembled the shelf with wood glue and screws. Tom counter sunk the screws and capped them off with wood plugs. Once assembled, the shelf felt much sturdier than when we started, always a good thing.

The next day, I finished the shelf with an oil product both stained and protected the wood. Five coats later, we ended up with a color that we liked. The stain also made all of my distressing stand out. This morning, while I was at work, Tom hung the shelf. He mounted it right into the studs so that the shelf could support weight. Originally, Tom had our cast iron frying pan sitting on top of the shelf, but I wanted to decorate, and that completely defeated the purpose of having the pegs. We fashioned some pot hooks out of 4 inch segments cut from a wire hanger. The top is decorated with some random knickknacks that we've accumulated.

Inspiration Source

Finished Product

Overall, I'm impressed with our project. I have been purchasing Tom tools for Christmas and his birthday for the last couple of years, so it was nice to see him actually use them. Also, if you compare the finished project to our inspiration, I think we hit our mark. It is nice to have little bits and pieces of our kitchen coming together, it makes me excited to go shopping for rugs and fabric to make curtains tomorrow.