Gettin' Industrial with it!
Getting' Industrial with it!
Na-na-na-na na-na-na hey!
Oh sorry, I'm not supposed to sing horrible Will Smith songs? Riiiiiight. So I have been super busy with a bazillion projects, but when the hubby says lets build new shelves with free materials, I get all tingly and drop every other project to work on the one he wants to. Since he is busy dealing with construction all day, it's rare that he would want to build in the evening. So here is my current favourite things in the house. Industrial shelving. YAY!
So my crazy lil gem Ruby is a tank. A very strong tank. She can lift herself up and swing there for longer than she should and the shelves we had hanging above our computer were the new "go-to" because of her nifty new stool that I regret buying……… ANyhoo, she decided she wanted to see what was on the shelf so she did an L-seat and pulled it off the wall. So scary and no it didn't hit her. Just the floor thankfully. We knew we needed to come up with something strong, sturdy, beefy and of course, it had to look cool too. We ended up getting pieces of fir from a couple pallets on the current job site of the hubby's. He went to work joining them, and planing them, routering them and sanding them. They were the perfect element of "not-so perfect" that I had been craving. Because it was ruff wood from pallets at work, it had lots of nicks and dings and I loved that about it. Next we needed a way to secure these to the wall so our future gymnast had no chance of pulling them down again. We went with galvanized piping from the plumbing section at home depot. Here's a little tip about galvanized. It's really greasy and oily. We needed it threaded and apparently home depot doesn't do that anymore so it was taken to the job site where a sub-trade did the hubby a favour and threaded it for us. He wore a pair of gloves when threading all the pieces together because it's so greasy and they were complete! Voila! We then had to scrub the absolute bajeezus outta them to get them clean before spraying on primer for galvanized metal. We used Tremclad for white primer. After that was dry we sprayed two coats of the Rustoleum oil-rubbed bronze spray paint. It was perfect. I wasn't really wanting the galvanized look so I called up my dear friend Nicole at Rivet and she suggested the "oil rubbed bronze " paint colour. Thanks Nic!
Next was the fun part. What stain to pick??? We had a few on hand and decided to test a few out on spare pieces left over. We ended up picking Minwax Colonial Maple. It was the perfect element of vintage looking wood with honey undertones. It really helped pull out the natural warmth of the fir.
So to further secure these beefy numbers to the wall, we put up some small strips of plywood that we primed and painted the colour of the wall. Then we secured the pipe onto the plywood which ALL of this was in studs (very important). Then, it was time to put the shelves up! YAY! Finally we drilled a hole in the bottom of each pipe and put a screw into the shelf from underneath so that they weren't going to slide around. There you have it! The most exciting new thing in the house! Here is our new and improved computer area:)
Na-na-na-na na-na-na hey!
Oh sorry, I'm not supposed to sing horrible Will Smith songs? Riiiiiight. So I have been super busy with a bazillion projects, but when the hubby says lets build new shelves with free materials, I get all tingly and drop every other project to work on the one he wants to. Since he is busy dealing with construction all day, it's rare that he would want to build in the evening. So here is my current favourite things in the house. Industrial shelving. YAY!
So my crazy lil gem Ruby is a tank. A very strong tank. She can lift herself up and swing there for longer than she should and the shelves we had hanging above our computer were the new "go-to" because of her nifty new stool that I regret buying……… ANyhoo, she decided she wanted to see what was on the shelf so she did an L-seat and pulled it off the wall. So scary and no it didn't hit her. Just the floor thankfully. We knew we needed to come up with something strong, sturdy, beefy and of course, it had to look cool too. We ended up getting pieces of fir from a couple pallets on the current job site of the hubby's. He went to work joining them, and planing them, routering them and sanding them. They were the perfect element of "not-so perfect" that I had been craving. Because it was ruff wood from pallets at work, it had lots of nicks and dings and I loved that about it. Next we needed a way to secure these to the wall so our future gymnast had no chance of pulling them down again. We went with galvanized piping from the plumbing section at home depot. Here's a little tip about galvanized. It's really greasy and oily. We needed it threaded and apparently home depot doesn't do that anymore so it was taken to the job site where a sub-trade did the hubby a favour and threaded it for us. He wore a pair of gloves when threading all the pieces together because it's so greasy and they were complete! Voila! We then had to scrub the absolute bajeezus outta them to get them clean before spraying on primer for galvanized metal. We used Tremclad for white primer. After that was dry we sprayed two coats of the Rustoleum oil-rubbed bronze spray paint. It was perfect. I wasn't really wanting the galvanized look so I called up my dear friend Nicole at Rivet and she suggested the "oil rubbed bronze " paint colour. Thanks Nic!
Next was the fun part. What stain to pick??? We had a few on hand and decided to test a few out on spare pieces left over. We ended up picking Minwax Colonial Maple. It was the perfect element of vintage looking wood with honey undertones. It really helped pull out the natural warmth of the fir.
So to further secure these beefy numbers to the wall, we put up some small strips of plywood that we primed and painted the colour of the wall. Then we secured the pipe onto the plywood which ALL of this was in studs (very important). Then, it was time to put the shelves up! YAY! Finally we drilled a hole in the bottom of each pipe and put a screw into the shelf from underneath so that they weren't going to slide around. There you have it! The most exciting new thing in the house! Here is our new and improved computer area:)
There you have it! Isn't it great? I'm obsessed. I hope you enjoyed this post as much as we did creating it. I'll be back soon:)
xoxo
-L