The project turned out much different than our original plan and there were a few snafus along the way. Originally, we thought we wanted to get a slim buffet table for our dining room. Our dining room is pretty tiny, but we thought we could squeeze in a narrow buffet table. It would give us a little extra room for food dishes during parties and get-togethers, plus give me some more room to put pretty decor items.
Adam said he could build one for me. After seeing the beautiful work he's done on other projects (like the sofa table, plant stand and bathroom shelves, just to name a few) I knew whatever he would build would be gorgeous.
So, we set out to find the perfect piece of wood for the table top. We wanted something with some character, so we checked out a few different specialty wood shops. Eventually, we found a stunning piece of curly cherry wood. It had pretty wood grain and I loved that the edge was rough.
We brought our new piece of wood home. The next step was to figure out what kind of legs we wanted to attach to the wood. We decided that black wrought iron hairpin legs would be perfect. There were a few vendors we looked at, including some through Etsy. But a problem arose. The brackets that would attach to the bottom side of the wood would be too big for our narrow piece of cherry. Dang!
That meant we had to go back to the drawing board. Our new thought was to attach the wood the wall with some sort of bracket at the same height a buffet table might land. We searched around for some cool brackets. I stumbled upon this picture and thought the brackets were super cool. I followed the source of the brackets back to an Etsy shop. While they are awesome, they were also expensive. I showed Adam the picture even though I'd already decided they were too expensive. Adam surprised me by saying those were just something called turnbuckles and you could get them at Home Depot for a couple bucks!
So we now had a new direction with our project. We went to Home Depot and picked out some turnbuckles. They were shiny silver, but a few thin coats of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint gussied those turnbuckles right up!
With our hardware problem solved, Adam got to work preparing the wood. He sanded the wood down so it was smooth. Then it was time to pick out the perfect stain. Adam has amassed quite the collection of wood stains, so we had lots to choose from. We wouldn't need the whole length of the board, so Adam used the end piece he cut off to test out the stains. He used some painter's tape to label each stain so we would know exactly what we were looking at. Luckily, we both picked the same stain option as our favorite. We liked the far right stain (Minwax Gel Stain in Aged Oak) because it was light enough to let the wood grain shine through and would look good with the rest of the wood tones in our dining room.
After staining the wood, Adam put three coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Topcoat in a semi-gloss finish on the wood so it will be protected. Look at how glossy and gorgeous that piece of wood is!
Now it was time to add the turnbuckle hardware. Adam used his measuring skills to attach three turnbuckles. He was able to do this step pretty quickly and without much trouble. The next step, however, caused a big headache.
Figuring out how to attach the hooks that would hold the turnbuckles (and essentially keep the shelf on the wall) was a bit tricky. First of all, the studs weren't centered on the wall, so there wasn't the option of attaching the hooks straight into the wall. That meant some sort of drywall anchors were needed. After perusing the selection of drywall anchors at Home Depot and Lowe's, we picked some toggle anchors we thought would be best. Turns out, we were wrong. Don't buy them.
So now we were left with giant holes in our wall. Grrrr....
But Adam the engineer and his problem-solving brain came to the rescue! He found some toggle bolts in the garage that would fit the size of the hole while still providing the stability needed to hold up the shelf.
He also spray-painted some washers to cover up the non-finished-looking space around the toggle bolts. It looks like it was meant to be there all along.
After the headache of figuring out how to attach the shelf to the wall, it was finally time to hang it up. We hung the turnbuckles on the hooks and it worked like a charm. It looks amazing, as well!
Adam also added some tiny brackets underneath the shelf that are drilled directly into the studs. You don't see these, but they ensure that the shelf stays put.
Once the shelf was in place, I got to do the fun part: adding accessories! I didn't want to add too much stuff that would detract from the pretty shelf. So I just added a simple vase with some of my elephant ear plants, a few extra cloth napkins, a dish with some after-dinner mints and a little star-shaped candle. There's still lots of room to add dishes for dinners and parties.
I am so in love with this new shelf! It's almost a bit rustic, with the turnbuckle hardware and the rough edge. But the glossy finish makes it still feel polished and classy. It really does add some more personality to our dining room. Another successful project, Adam!
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