Little Updates

We have a few big house project plans - building a patio, creating an outdoor shower and painting several rooms, for example.  Some of those projects require more careful planning.  For me, that means looking at similar projects for inspiration, researching materials, obtaining samples and working the expenses into the budget.

We have another running list for smaller projects - filling the planters on the front porch, hanging up some pictures & art and pick up a small new rug for the for the front entry... this list is ever growing and never ending.  We kind of enjoy that part of homeownership though.  So, we've chipped away at a few of these quickie jobs, including adding a few shelves to the guest bathroom.

Why in the world would our brand new house not have these shelves?  We asked the builder to skip the standard shelves.  They would have been the white powder coated wire shelves.  Those are fine, of course, but I prefer wood shelves.  And, the builder would have installed wood shelves for us, but I knew it was something we could do, and I knew we could save money if we did (over the course of a few closets, actually).

After pics -

This closet will look this organized for roughly ten more minutes (glad I have evidence that it once was though).

Anyway, if you're curious, this was a simple project.

Without going into full tutorial mode, I'll sum it up by saying we determined how many shelves we wanted, measured the space, and bought the wood from a local big box store.  We cut the wood to size, stained it, and then installed the shelves.

We used a new-to-us product to stain the shelves, Polyshades.  I choose Espresso color in gloss finish.  I absolutely recommend this product!  Our alternative would have been several coats of stain followed by at least two coats of Polycrylic (speaking from experience with similar staining projects).  We used two coats of the Polyshades and followed the instructions on the can to apply.  When you're storing linens on wood shelves, you want a smooth finish and no chance of splinters.  The gloss also makes it easier to wipe off any toiletries that may happen to spill.  I find these "poly" products do just the trick.

On to the next little project!