DIY: Office Shelves

This summer has flown by! I can hardly believe that it is the last couple of days July! We spent two weeks in Florida this month on our annual family vacation and pictures are to come on that.

I have been neglecting my blog here lately. At one point I was posting three entries per week! Now if I can squeeze one in a month I am so proud. School starts back soon and I am vowing to get back into routines!

Since we have moved into our new home(I know that I haven’t shared about yet, but will soon!) it has been project after project! Not going to lie though, I love all these little projects! I consider decorating, redoing, and DIY projects my hobby. I have been sharing bits and pieces of the projects on social media but I have decided to start sharing here.

I have been searching for the perfect office shelves for above my file cabinets, and I haven’t been able to find them. If you look on Pinterest there are million DIY of how to do shelves but I couldn’t find some that I just loved. I found some shelves that “could” work on Restoration Hardwares site but the dimensions were still not perfect because I needed the shelves to be 12 inches deep to fit some baskets. Plus on Restoration Hardware site after adding two shelves and brackets to my shopping cart it turned into a $800 project!

Okay so here it is. The overall dimension of my office file cabinets were 64 inches. So I knew I wanted the bottom cabinet to be that length. The upper cabinet I took a level and measured out exactly how long I wanted it. If you see the pictures below I have a slanting ceiling in that space so I wanted the upper one to be smaller and I have a clock that I want to work into that space. So you can figure out your dimensions before going to get lumber.

I went to Home Depot Friday night and I knew lengths and depth that I needed. I think the biggest problem I have found with all the other DIY shelf projects I have seen is the wood selection. I wanted my shelves to be sturdy and look substantial. In other words at least 2 inches thick.

I found a 2(thick) x 12(deep) x 10 (length) framing board from Home Depotframing board from Home Depot, and I thought it was perfect and under 15 bucks. I knew my specs so I got them to go ahead and cut the board will I was at Home Depot, one being 64 inches long and the other being 40 inches. Huge bonus is now they would easily fit in my car! 🙂

Here are all the tools that I used for the project. It was all stuff that I had laying around the house that was left over from other projects.

– Miniwax Stain – this is half Dark Walnut half Provincial leftover from our hardwood floors. You could choose any color you like here
– Miniwax Polyurethane leftover from Staining a door. I had clear satin but I also love the matte finish.
– Gloves to prevent stain and poly from getting on your hands. Or trying to prevent at least!
– Razor Blade (will explain)
– Chain left over from a light fixture (will explain)
– Hammer and Flat head screw driver.
– Ryobi hand sander
– Not pictured is a 120 or 150 pieces of fine sandpaper for some hand sanding.
I like buying my supplies on TradeFix Direct, I particularly recommend their collated nails which always seem to do the job really well – https://tradefixdirect.com/collated-nails, its definitely worth checking their site out.

At first I recruited my husband to hit the board with a chain. A lot of people use a hammer for distressed but I don’t think it looks right or natural. Do all sides including the bottom, top, and ends.

After it was distressed with the chain I used the razor blade to distress ALL the edges. Do every corner and edge to actually make it look like it “could” be old. Side note… there is probably a tool for this but I was using was I had around the house! And remember you can’t really screw this up.

After I finished I felt like it was missing something so I grab a flat head screwdriver and hammer and scratch the board up in various places using the hammer to drive the screwdriver into the board. Will show pictures of that in a moment.

Once it was distressed to my liking make sure to take the hand sander and smooth out the board and take off anything you don’t like on it. Even sand where you distressed just smooth the area but not to take the imperfections out. Once done with that take the fine sand paper and go over the entire board with you hand and take out anything that is sticking up.

Then it is stain time! Apply the stain and wipe off any extra. Let it completely dry then apply two coats of poly according to the directions on the can.

Here are the completed shelves!

And I haven’t forgot what in the world did I mount this with? Here is what I used and I got 4 of everything.
– Malleable Iron Floor Flange Galvanized. You can get this in various sizes. I choose 3/4 thick which is one of the largest, again I wanted ti to look substantial.
– Galvanized Steel Pipe. I Choose 12 inches long to work with the depth of my shelves but this you can also customized. Just get 3/4 inch thick and this in screws right into the Floor Flanges.
– Galvanized iron caps for the end. Again 3/4 inch

Make sure that you get 4 mounting screws that are made for sheetrock before you hang up the shelves. We also just had plain stainless steel screws and brackets leftover from other projects.

I actually loved the way the wood grain looked on the framing board. I wasn’t too sure about my wood selection at first but I am SO happy with it! The picture on the right shows the distressing using the flat head screwdrives and using the hammer to hit it.

Here are a couple different angles.

And again the final product! Now to decorate! Total cost?
– Framing Board $14.12
– Galvanized Pipes (4 at 6.22) 24.88
– Galvanized End Caps (4 at $1.81) 7.24
– Galvanized Floor Flanges (4 at $5.06) 20.24

Total Cost roughly $70 and it took less than 2 hours to do!