Our Pottery Barn Knockoff Shelves!


To decorate our little beach get away, we had to get creative, or rather my husband did.   Previously, I  had posted a picture of our master bedroom as original owner had decorated it. 

While I like the shelves idea , we both disliked the cheesy cheap shelves.Trying saying that  3 times! LOL..

In my collection of images of beach house decor , I had saved a Pottery Barn image of the Nantucket bedroom .... Everything was sumptuous and expensive ... of course everything I seem to gravitate to is.... What caught my eye was this wonderful shelf behind the bed.. Isn't it gorgeous? 

However , the price was way more than I could justify when we had so many other things like exterior painting , shed, interior painting to do.  I saved the photo for my wish list, until one day my husband Terry, asked me if I wanted him to hang the original shelves back up in our room.  When I told him no , he was a little surprised, then I showed him my wish listed shelf... He said he could probably make one like it if I wanted it ..... Yes yes yes!!! I wanted one just like this one and while he was at it could he make the smaller one form PB too?  I pulled out another image  from my wish list :

 

Terry had a stock pile of wood left over from a wood head board  he had already dismantled .  He was able to created 7 different shelves from this one headboard! The only purchase we had to made was the dentil molding for the 2 larger shelves Which was $37.00 for 8 ft piece.

For a DIY project is didn't get any better than this! 

Since Terry was using preexisting wood  shelves they dictated the depth of the top shelf, 

in this case 6"  by 45" in length

the back piece was 10" wide  and cut to measure 43" so that the top of the shelf has an overhang .

For interior framed shelf he measured in on each side 2 inches on . Making the interior shelf  about  39". This was just a simple 3 sided box shape longest length was 38"  1" by 2" wide  

If one wanted to cheat on this step you could cut any existing cheap frame that would give you the width and depth , simply cut to fit. Notice the decorative white frames sitting on top of the shelf imagine cutting on of those and fitting it on this shelf you could skip having to miter the edges.  Terry's skill level is a lot higher than mine so if I were creating this I would cheat and use a existing frame. I'm just saying..

Everything is glued and nailed together, Terry is a big fan of measure twice cut once rule... 

If you click this picture you can get a closeup view of the way the dentil molding is applied. It is cut like you are creating a frame flat side is used to create interior shelf. Miter box will be your best friend to cut the 45 degree angles need.  Play with scrap wood first so you don't make errors on the expensive dentil molding!

As this point Terry dry fits everything to be sure it goes together properly. Once satisfied , glue and nail ( Terry Used nail gun) top piece to the back .  Then assemble the interior frame shelf by gluing and nailing. Any nail holes will be filled with wood putty .

Once assembled and dry it was my turn . I painted the shelves with antique white satin interior paint..  for well, the white ones and  and robins egg blues for the blue ones. Double coat. Once dry I sanded the tops  and edges in sum places down to the wood. Once I was satisfied with the worn look I used  a antiquing technique , working with diluted  dark brown acrylic paint. I prefer a thin wash and easy clean up. Basically , work in small areas with a paint brush dab or brush on color and with a clean wipe off excessive until you are happy with results. Since I used water based acrylic I could dampen the cloth slightly if my aging looked too heavy . You could use a dark stain varnish too, however it's not as easy to deal with.

Terry's Pottery Barn knockoffs!