F.R.E.E. Up-Cycled Bathroom Shelf

I'm excited to share another uber cheap DIY project with you today that was done about.....ohhhh a month or so ago.  It's so easy and most importantly it turned out really pretty!  I'm proud of my little freebie!!

Here's what she looked like when I "stumbled" upon her:

Recently, while on a walk with my Boston, I noticed a brown shelf that was sitting on the curb in front of a house that they were clearly throwing away (I did that whole stalking-of-our-neighbors-curbs again....remember when I picked up these chairs).  So, I inspected it for sturdiness (pushed it around, picked it up and inspected the back) and it passed my test.   So I called the hubby at work and told him to pick it up on his way home.  ha.  Yeah, I let him look like the weirdo picking up things off the curb.   Luckily he doesn't mind.  He gets the "happy wife = happy life" motto.  

Once I got her in my hands backyard, I got to work sanding her down.

I love using my sander on anything and everything.  She's my hot fudge to my sundae.  She makes things so much easier.  For the longest time I was using a 3M sanding block.  But not no mo!  

When sanding, you just want to make sure that your shelf is smooth.  Any bumps (like old paint that's peeling off) will show through the paint.  Once it's smooth, be sure to wife it down with a wet rag really good.  You wouldn't want any sanding dust showing through your paint, either.  

Next up....paint.  I dug through my bins in the garage that are full of paint cans and had this sample left over from our living room re-paint job.  I love this color.  It's not too gray and it's not too white.  It's just right.  

 

We painted with our trusty ol' Purty paint brushes.  When buying paint brushes, go with the gold.  Meaning, buy the good ones.  The ones that cost.  Not the cheap ones.  You definitely get what you pay for when it comes to paint brushes.  Plus, they last a long time if you clean them correctly.

We didn't paint the backing of the shelf since it would be covered up anyway.

After 2 coats of paint and after letting it dry for an hour.  Jer pulled the backing off with his leatherman.

He had a little help from our John Deere master, too.

Help with climbing through the shelf making sure it was sturdy and making sure the paint was dry.

Then I got to work touching up the bottom (a few spots I missed).

Hopefully this guy will grow up to be a handy man like his daddy and DIY'er by watching us.  His new favorite "toy" is Jer's hammer.  Ha.  Don't worry, we pay close attention to him when he has it.  He mainly just carries it around.  :)

Jer found a scrap piece of wood for extra support.

We covered the backing with fabric, hot glued it down and then nailed the backing back on.  If you use fabric that has a design on it, make sure your fabric isn't crooked or tilted.  You want your design to be straight.  Luckily, ours was in one try.

RECAP:

We chose to hang it in our master bathroom "toilet room" which desperately needed some shelving for some necessities/decor.  It was just waaayy too bare.

For extra support, my husband decided that it'd be best if we used a piece of lumber underneath it as reinforcement (even though we hung it on the studs).  So he screwed those in and I painted it the same color as the shelf.

And here's our new beauty hanging pretty with all her fixin's!  I'm so excited about how she turned out.  I love the colors of the paint (I used a paint that I already had called Alpaca from Sherwin Williams) and fabric together.

I hope you liked this project and you too will keep an eye out for trash on your neighbors curbs and turn something into a pretty/useable treasure!!