You remember this from a while back, right? The shelf is now finally complete! It was kind of serendipitous that we didn't install it into the booth last weekend because it needed a little bit more work. Enter Martha Stewart Stencils and a whole lotta muscle.
Again, I'm really bad at thinking to take before shots, so here's a crappy basement picture of it before everything else was painted. It is made out of two salvaged doors, scrap wood, and a couple of shelves I found at Goodwill. I painted the large door, but had to leave the rest of it to my mom and her boyfriend since we don't live close and it wouldn't fit in our car. I really love how it turned out! I definitely got questionable vibes when I decided on pink paint, but no other color ever crossed my mind. My mom didn't paint the backside of the smaller door with the swirl on it, which was a problem because it would be exposed since we don't have a corner space. It had some drips that would have looked thoughtlessly unfinished instead of intentionally shabby.
It was also really dirty because it was farm fresh. I washed it up and painted it pink to match the other door, leaving a little section of stencil in the middle with the original wood. I also painted the edges of the shelves silver and stenciled them with atomic stars to look like a 50's countertop since I couldn't get my hands on any laminate.
The next day, the door still needed another coat and some stars to match the shelves. Then a brilliant idea took over my mind and I just had to execute it. Salem North Star inspired atomic bursts. Duh! So I used the rectangles from one of the stencils to make the fatter parts of the bursts and dabbed a sponge brush to make the thin black lines. They obviously don't look as refined, but I think it still looks really awesome. After spending two days making this display look even more irresistible, I started really thinking about how I could make it work in the apartment. We have very limited space. Originally I thought about just getting rid of the couch, but it holds so many memories of my Babie Marie that it would be too heart breaking. It will also make a great studio couch for BJ once we move into a house. Then it hit me. Take it apart!
This couch weighs at least twice as much as me and it was such a pain trying to figure out how to get the bars holding both sides together unscrewed, but I did it all by myself! Not only did I take it apart, I moved it into place, AND moved the super duper heavy door from one side of the room sideways to upright where I wanted it, then put it all together!
The big door weighs a ton and it is top heavy due to the extra shelves attached around the window, and the glass, too, of course. My cats almost got crushed several times during this entire rearranging ordeal, which only added to the stress, but we got through it unscathed. BJ helped me finish securing the shelves with the hooks underneath. I didn't want to spend a bunch of time fighting to get them in only to take them apart if he hated it. Luckily, he wanted to keep the shelf at home just as much as I did. I think my hoarder tendencies might be rubbing off on him. At the very least, he's becoming a collector.
In the midst of the mayhem, I got a knock on the door from the caretaker. He asked me if I forgot a package in the stairwell between the second and third floor. Uh, no, definitely not. Reason number 472 why I hate living here. There has been mail theft here that resulted in a stolen credit card. The mailman very frequently delivers mail to the wrong apartment. I wonder how much mail I haven't received because I have the laziest, crappiest neighbors of all time. Whatever happened, I'm annoyed. I'm glad he caught it because I've been waiting for these cuties very impatiently! These babies came from an Instagram seller. I'd been drooling over them and thinking about them constantly since the second they were posted for sale, but they were a lot more than I usually spend on white cats. I really like to only spend thrift store or less on them. Probably the reason I have an overgrown collection. I have a package that has been marked delivered to me today which I've yet to receive. Ugh! I hope this one turns up, too. It's a vintage pink radio toilet paper holder. So necessary. Haha!
Anyway, here's the shelf all loaded up with vintage goodness and my little Gooseberry peeking around the corner. She's handling the new arrangement like a champ! I've got spaghetti sauce on the stove, oatmeal cookies fresh from the oven, and I'm ready for the weekend! We're hitting up an estate sale tomorrow which promises to add to my heard of cats. What are you up to this weekend? If you're handy and have access to salvage, this could be a fun weekend project!
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