My One-Stop-Shop (With Custom-Built Shelving)

Until this week, my miscellaneous (and growing) collection of home decor/centerpieces/candleholders/seashells were strewn around different cabinets and boxes. It wasn’t until I began to clean up the awkward shelf and give it a fresh coat of paint (which I wrote about here) that I realized maybe I could make a super-organized one-stop-shop for all of my goodies. I was also inspired by this post by Young House Love, which demonstrates one couple’s way of organizing their decor.

To make my new shop as functional as possible, I decided to make a quick shelving unit that could sit inside and expand storage upwards into the space. Once I had taken some preliminary measurements, I proceeded with cutting 2×4 boards to make legs. On those legs, I measured equidistantly up from the bottoms, and installed little wooden brackets for the eventual shelves to sit on.

I then proceeded with cutting two shelves to length, and then screwing the boards into the brackets which were already affixed to the legs. Voila! A quick + easy shelf. Next, I tried to stain it using some Oops! stain I had available already (read: free) but sadly, it didn’t work as well as I would have liked; this was partially due to the fact that the dark brown wasn’t the feel I was going for in the light and airy space, and also because the wood, despite having been sanded down, still had remnant paint and pre-stained areas, so the new coat of stain didn’t go on evenly. Live and learn – this is a blog on which I intend to capture my trials AND errors, so be it. Check out the bad stain job in the photo below. Oh, and see how the right hand side overhangs and there’s an opening in the wall? There’s a little stained glass door that opens into the living room, so I wanted to be able to open it and also access the shelving unit and decor that remains hidden.

Post bad-stain-job, I made a quick judgement call and painted the whole thing white. Much better. It fits into the awkward shelf like a glove, and was quickly outfitted with many of my home goods. Not bad. In fact, looking pretty darn good. Quite pleased with having everything in one nice place.

And, I also wanted to show you what it looks like from the other doorway so you can see the stained-glass second entryway for yourself:

And I just noticed that I never painted the trim surrounding the stained glass white! I suppose when I was painting the rest of the trim I had decided it blended nicely to the natural wood mantle, but now I’m rethinking. Does it look weird to anyone else?