A shelf in the house is this very necessary and useful item. And especially if this shelf has an original design. She will attract eyes and delight the eye. If you, like me, do not like the usual chipboard shelves, which are most often found in our houses, then I suggest you do an interesting thing from improvised materials, and most importantly, at minimal cost.
Tools and materials:
- Boards, I use a disassembled pallet
- Dry tree branches
- One or two color stains
- Electric jigsaw
- Sander
- Sandpaper
- Self-tapping screws
- Roulette, or a large line
- A pen
- drill
- screwdriver
- Acrylic varnish
- Palette knife, or a small spatula
- PVA glue
- A brush, preferably two, small and large
- You may need a knife
- gloves
I will take boards for the shelf from the disassembled pallet. There are several drawbacks - it is difficult to disassemble, and there are holes from nails. But there are pluses - a small price, and you can find an interesting texture.
First of all, we will determine the size of the future shelf. The lower part is a little longer than the upper. I selected the sizes based on the place where it will be located, and you can do it differently. The width of the boards is 100mm. The length of the bottom board will be 460mm, the top - 400mm, and the sides - 220mm each.
We make markings on the boards with a pen or pencil, and cut them out.
Since I will have twigs on the left side, we cut out only one right side of the board for the sides. And the left one, respectively, is cut from a dry branch.
A branch can be one, or a whole bouquet, at your discretion. I will have one as a wall, and one as a supplement.
When all the parts are cut, they need to be processed with a grinder. Particular attention should be paid to the sides, there may be many sticking chips.
As for the twigs, for starters, you need to peel the bark. I have walnut branches. You can find such kindness on the street.
Since the tree is already dry, peeling the bark will not be a problem.
You can do it with your hands, but if it goes badly, then you can hook it with a knife.
If after this there remain small protruding fibers, then you can grind a little. But usually, everything itself perfectly departs.
In order to facilitate my future work, I decided to immediately color the branches. To make the whole shelf more interesting, I will use two colors: chestnut color for boards, and black stain for branches.
We stir the stain, pour it into a jar and pass the branches with a thin brush.
You can apply two layers for a brighter color, but I will leave it that way. We will cover with varnish later, when the product is ready.
When the stain is dry, you can begin to fasten the parts. We attach the parts to each other, and make holes for the self-tapping screws with a thin drill.
I decided to hide the screws, their black hats will look messy. To do this, you need to make potai. We take a drill, which has a diameter slightly wider than the head of the self-tapping screw, and we make a recess for the head several millimeters.
When the boards are fastened, you can fasten the branches. First you need to attach, and see how they will be located. Usually, the branches have a curved trunk, so the top and bottom should be noted on the boards very carefully. Then, drill holes for screws, and on top, recesses for caps.
We fasten everything.
I will place the second stick just for decoration, it will not have any functionality.
And that’s what happened.
The next step is to hide all the unnecessary holes. For this, you can use improvised material - sawdust. Pour PVA glue into the bowl and pour the sawdust.
I have the whole floor in sawdust so I did not have to look for a long time. Mix, and quickly gloss over everything until the PVA starts to dry.
To make it dry faster, I put the shelf closer to the stove, otherwise you can wait for many hours.
When the sawdust is dry, they need to be sanded.
Now, you need to remove all the dust with a damp cloth, and you can paint the shelf.
I use the color of stain "Chestnut", it favorably emphasizes the texture. Stain should be mixed well. It will be more convenient to use two brushes, thick and thin, for hard-to-reach spots.
When everything is painted, wait until the stain dries. After that, you will still need to walk the skin.
You can apply another layer of stain for the brightness of the color.
After complete drying, to protect against wear, you need to fix the color with varnish. Acrylic varnish, in my opinion, is the best option. It is better to apply two, or three layers. Matte varnish will not give a strong shine, which is why I really like it.
The drying time of the layer is about one hour.
After applying and drying the last layer, you can fasten the fasteners. Screw one on each side. I previously painted my mounts with white enamel. This is so that they do not stand out on a light wall. Sometimes they can rust, and thereby dirty the wall and spoil the view. Although, it is better to hang the shelf at such a distance so that they are less visible.
When the fasteners are screwed to the shelf, you can hang on the wall.
Well, that’s all, our regiment is ready. I really like the result, I hope you do too. In the future, you can make a few more, and get a whole collection. Moreover, all materials are very affordable. Thanks for attention.
