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.
