Garbage Shelf Turn Art Deco

So I think everyone has this shelf in there house- or maybe I want to believe everyone has one . But a shelf thats been passed through siblings, been nailed, had multiple purposes, and finally ended up as a shelf that had a bunch of paint cans on an ulimatley written off.

Ok maybe it's just me.

But this shelf was really sentimental. A shelf I had burnt as a child ( yes the top shelf was burnt) , my brother had hammered large nails in , and my father had painted green, and left cans on it to muck it up. Only for me to gain this piece again. And oh boy did I need to fix it.

To Fix this shelf in total I used a lot of what I had currently in my mary poppins box of craft so this included:

• A Sander with a 100 grit

• Sand paper with a 220 Grit

• Prodec WoodShield Varnish in Clear

• Fired Earths Cabinet and Furniture Paint in Grey Ghost

• Fired Earths Rose Gold

• Fired Earths non-drip Enamel in White

Now before you scream if you go out and buy all of these at once I can assure you your bill will be well over R1000. So please don't buy it. Although I did have white furniture paint I had washed it down for another project. So I decided to experiment and that I needed the non drip enamel for extra strength with this shelf because of the extensive damage the shelf sustained in the past. So My aim was to ensure I restored it to a reasonable extent and gave it a really great gloss and coat. And looking at this shelf a month later its looking pretty healthy to me.

I have no excuse use for using wall paint - I literally had a burst of excitement seeing my little creation come together and I just felt it needed a little something something and that was the something something I had.

With that said Granny B's chalk paint is by far the best paint you can use ! and if I could I most definitely would have used it here. But could-a-would-a-should-a and I love my shelf anyway and there was no fail from my little experiment.

So let me show you my little Frankensteins process into art deco love-

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So this is what it started off looking like . In total I think I pulled out 10 x 7 cm nails. I also had to wood fill the top shelf because of the burned wood. And then spend a considerable amount of time sanding the years of use of this shelf right down to a fairly smooth surface.

Because the wood itself was fairly damaged I used a thick resin based paint to give it more of a glossy look . You usually use this on your doors and wood finishings on your house but it seemed to work great with this piece.

When you look at the way the shelf tilts and where the shadows lie I thought it would be rather cheeky to retro it up by painting some triangles that would work as a small optical illusion on the shelf. For this I used ....

I finally ended this off with a good old varnishing and voila . Good as new and fits right in with the rest of my house.

But I have a future plan for this shelf - I no longer want this bad boy to be free standing . Oh no- I want it to be free, sort of - on the wall. So keep your eye's peeled for our next project.

If you think this was a total fail or win I'd love to hear it! Maybe you've also got a shelf lying about with a similar tale you'd love to give an upcycle. GO ON- YOU CAN DO IT!