Towel Bars Beware

Oh, towel bars.  If I didn’t already have a nemesis, you would be my greatest foe.  I fucking hate towel bars.  Hate them super hard.  You can’t fit more than one towel on them without knowing some odd form of linen origami and when they’re folded up, they never dry fully.  Reaching in hope for a nice dry towel after getting out of the shower and wrapping yourself in what is essentially an annoyingly damp mold factory is one of the worst things ever in my fluffy bubble of a world. 

When the fella and I moved into our new house, one of the first things I did was install hooks next to the shower in the master bathroom.

Did they really expect us to comfortably fit two towels on that piece of crap bar?

I think maybe one box had been half unpacked before I declared, “Screw this noise!” and ran out to purchase two $1.99 hooks.  Still one of my favorite changes to the house.  Cut to over a year later and I have declared war against the towel bar in the guest bathroom.  Granted, the shower in this bathroom has only been used a handful of times (mostly as a wash basin for beer brewing equipment) so the issues I have against my second greatest adversary don’t pop up all that often but still, all towel bars must be exterminated. 

For once, the Daleks and I agree.

My plan of attack was to build a simple shelf with hooks so the towels could be hung sans linen origami and the shelf could hold some cool decorative/display items.  Due to my lack of woodworking knowledge, building something entirely from scratch was a little daunting so I opted for the most functional yet simple design possible.   Seriously simple.  Its two pieces of wood connected with a couple corner brackets, screws, and glue.  There are also hooks....did I mention the hooks?  Because they are kind of essential to this whole party.   

First step was to cut down and stain the plank of wood being used which was in no way pilfered from the scrap piles of a dozen or so construction sites located around our house thus making the main portion of this project free.  Made one cut and turned a 5x6x1 piece of wood into two 2.5x6x1 pieces of wood.   The bathroom this shelf is destined for is currently rocking an octopus theme so I wanted something more rustic and maybe nautical looking, like the shelf was created from old pieces of a pirate ship, all weathered, worn, and imperfect.  To create some distressing on the wood I used a crescent wrench and banged the shit outta this thing to create dents, divots, and scratches.  It was super fun. 

 

Top: untouched wood.  Bottom: banged up and stained...similar to a hooker on a rough night

The wood stain (Miniwax Wood Sheen in Colonial Walnut) pools in the flaws of the wood created from the cathartic wrench swinging session coloring these pieces darker and creating an aged look.

Once my wood was all awesomely banged up and the stain had dried it was time to start assembling this thing in way that it would hopefully stay together.

Ran a line of wood glue along the edge

Set with clamps during the drying period

For some extra security, I also added wood screws going through the back section of the shelf and into the actual ledge portion.  I marked where the hardware needed to go, drilled pilot holes, and then added the screws.

Yea, screws!

There was a slightly annoying issue with the hooks I bought in that they did not come with screws.  After digging through our large mish-mash of hardware, I managed to locate the six necessary to complete this step.  The other lame detail was my hooks were a bronze color whereas all the screws found were silver.  Silver screws on bronze hooks looked stupid so I painted them oil rubbed bronze with leftover spray paint from a previous project.  

Inferior stupid silver screw on left.  Amazingly awesome painted screw on right.

The corner brackets/screws also got a coat of spray paint

 After all the hardware had dried....or mostly dried....I'm really impatient, I rinsed and repeated the whole marking where things needed to go, drilled pilot holes, attached the hardware, and ended up with this.

I could not be more pleased with how this turned out.  Funny thing is, after I put this whole shebang together, I realized that I didn’t have the proper hardware to hang it on the wall.  So, this post will be split into two parts my friends.  In the follow up post, I’ll show everything involved with attaching the hanging hardware to the shelf and then removing every last trace of the old towel bar from the bathroom so that we may forever forget its existence and replace it with the glory of my newly constructed apparatus.

TO BE CONTINUED......

Bookcase Redo: Wine Bar Edition

So let’s make a long story short and then make it medium length.  One day I looked at the bookcase pictured below and thought, “That could totally be a wine bar.”  In probably what will prove to be record time, I thought of an idea and managed to execute it in the span of a day.  Good for me. 

On to the medium length story, the below bookcase sits in the corner of my kitchen with his buddy Wine Fridge where they hang out having grand adventures of keeping my booze at the proper temperature and storing serving pieces/cookbooks.  As you can see, the contents of the bookcase are pretty sparse and no matter how many times I wandered through the house looking for other pieces to make this look like a real space and not something that was thrown together in a corner (which it totally was) I kept coming up empty.  The husband and I just do not have that many decorative pieces.  Moving from a one bedroom apartment into a three bedroom home left a desire for a lot of different items and we’ve focused our extra money towards other things, like a kitchen table, bookcases, computer desk, etc. and not necessarily towards items to help beautify and personalize our home.

All in all, I like the placement of the bookcase, it helps adds some nice height to the corner and seems to ground the eating area.  But it lacked something to make it a stand-out piece.  And then the wine bar idea came to me. 

 

The only materials I needed to purchase were two of the upside down wine glass hangers.  One trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and $20 bucks later, I was all set to go.  After empting the top half of this bookcase (actual shelf area and cupboard are not connected) I enlisted some help from the muscles of the family i.e. the fella, and finagled the shelving half to the floor to get to work.

Attaching the glass holders took all of ten minutes.  The only tricky part of this process was I was attaching them to a fixed shelf (could not be easily/at all removed without taking the entire thing apart) so I was working sideways the whole time.  However you are working on this step though, whether it be sideways, from the top, upside down, or perhaps under water, simply place the hangers where you want them and mark the holes where the hardware is going to go.  I drilled small pilot holes as well, taking extra care not to drill straight through the shelf, so there was less chance of splitting the wood and the screws went in really easy.  Honestly, I probably could have skipped this step, but I like using power tools so I'll take any excuse to bust out the electric drill.

Not pictured: Hobbes on the other side of this shelf attacking the back of the bookcase.  Bookcase backings are apparently really threatening.

This project also allowed me to do something I’ve been dying to try which is add a paper or fabric backing to a bookcase. The pop of color and texture poking out from behind items displayed on a bookcase just makes me smile.  After digging through my fabric stockpile, I found a couple yards of a neat geometric pattern in a kelly green color.  The backing on this bookcase was the flimsy kind that was held in place by tack nails so it was easily pried up using the claw side of a hammer.  Once that was up, I used a staple gun to fix the fabric in place, trimmed the excess off, and then replaced the flimsy backing using some fresh tack nails being careful not to hammer them into the newly added staples.  Am I the only one who has a ton of leftover tack nails from assembling furniture?  I can never seem to use all of them up on their designated piece.



Back of shelving with backing removed



Hold the fabric tight as you staple around the edges. 



Kitten interruption: one of the many hazards of crafting



Shelving dekittened and excess fabric trimmed off.

Once the backing was back in place, the fella and I returned the shelving to its proper place and BAM, instant wine bar….well, almost.

A few glasses and accessories later and then BAM, instant wine bar.  Pictured here are a variety of wine glasses including our only set of champagne glasses that have Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas printed on them because that’s where we got married and they were free with the wedding package we chose.  So yea, we’re pretty fancy.  Also pictured is a half drank bottle of wine which used to take up space on the kitchen counter before I made this beautiful new home for it.  To help with the drinking of wine, I also snagged a small tray (pilfered from another room) to house a couple bottle openers, a foil cutter, and a glass container to collect corks. 

Yep, vintage milkshake tray to hold wine stuff.



Overall, I’m pretty stoked about this project.  It still needs a little tweaking, maybe a small piece of artwork to go in the glaringly empty space between the bottle of wine and the tray.  But, next time we have a party, I can totally see a couple open bottles of wine along with small bowls filled with antipasto goodies for snacking being stationed here.  Also, bonus, having the majority of our wine glasses in this spot cleared out some much needed space in our kitchen cupboards.