Minibar DIY Project

One of my many crafts that I had planned for our house was to turn an old bookshelf into a minibar.  I purchased a standard bookshelf off of Craigslist.  I don’t think that the piece was originally from Ikea, but it has a light weight feel that is similar.  The previous owner had stained the shelf a dark color herself.  I liked the bookshelf as it was, but I didn’t want to have to go find another book shelf to turn into my project.  

I first wiped down the shelf because it had been sitting in my parents garage for over a month.  I probably should have sanded the shelf down, especially since I have my new Rigid random orbital sander, but I was a little afraid that the whole thing would fall apart if I put too much pressure on it.  In hindsight, I probably should have passed on the shelf and waited until I found one of higher quality, but I was impatient.  When I purchased the shelf I had every intention of doing the project that same weekend, but as life goes, we got busy.

After the initial wipe down, I gave the shelf two good coats of glossy gray spray paint.  Just as a disclaimer, I’m terrible at spray painting.  I get too close, too impatient for it to dry, too heavy handed.  The pictures I take are from afar for a reason.  Instagram filtering makes it even better.  Hah!  For this piece there is some splotchiness, but it doesn’t look terrible and I ended up covering it with candles.   Because we live on a hill and it is windy, the wind actually blew my shelf over and it got dusty while still in the drying process.  Just a tip, if something gets on your project while painting, just wait for it to dry and usually it will brush right off.  This is what I ended up doing and it worked like a charm.  There is no trace of the shelf being tipped over in the wind. Though, I don’t have the professional eye.

While painting the shelf, I glued two small pieces of wood together with wood glue and then spray painted it with the same color paint.  When they were all dry I secured them together with finishing nails.  Nick cut them down with his Dremel for me to make custom champagne glass holders.  It was a little difficult to get the cuts straight, but they don't look that bad.  You can buy metal glass holders online or even Ikea, but the shelves were pretty narrow and all of the metal racks were too big for the shelf.  This was also a much less expensive alternative.  I think I only spent around $3.00 where as the set from Amazon that gave me inspiration where about $13.  I ended up adhering the glass holders with wood glue to the shelf.  I wanted to nail them in, but the shelves are pretty thin so I’m hoping the glue will hold for pretty much, ever.  If not, they’re just glasses and can be replaced. 

For the backing I used 3M spray adhesive with scrapbooking paper.  I just used a measuring tape and ruler to measure out what would fit the shelf background.  When I was done I sprayed a clear coat of spray paint on the paper.  This was a mistake.  The spray adhesive negatively reacted to the clear coat and made the paper start to lift.  To rectify this I just used some double stick tape to glue it back down.  I have ModPodge, but didn’t want it to be to goopy.  After I put glasses and bottles on the shelf you don't really notice the blunders.  I still love it despite its flaws.  It adds character.