I Dream of Barn wood

How we made our own barn wood shelves

It started when I was a kid, following my mother, precariously exploring antique stores in search of furniture to restore.  All my life, my mom and dad have worked on restoring antiques to their glory, and have instilled in me the appreciation and value of something old.  We have driven by countless barns, and even tried helping my uncle source a buyer for his barn right before it collapsed, but this was before the explosion and demand for barn wood.

Our small home has two great (working) fireplaces.  And along the wall next to the upstairs fireplace we used an Ikea shelving unit to store our books and nicknacks.  It worked, and looked nice, but I had designs, nay dreams for that wall.  And those dreams finally came true.  My Husband build me floating barn wood shelves for this space and they are incredible.

Sourcing the Barn Wood

We knew we were going to pay a pretty penny for some quality wood, that wouldn’t need a bunch of brackets to hold it up.  We first stopped at Construction Junction, but no joy.  While they had a lot of other really neat things in their warehouse, they were out of barn wood (it goes fast!).

So our next stop, was place that I’ve been dying to go shopping, Salvaged PGH.  They’re located near us, right on the other side of North Park and I love them so much that I shouldn’t even be telling you about them because they have so many great treasures, I want them all.  But I’ll be nice and share.

The owner of the store came outside with us in the blazing sun and helped us pick out the right barn wood and gave us her price.  $7.50 per square foot.  We thought okay, thats about what we had budgeted, but what are other people charging.  Salvaged Pittsburgh came in under everyone else’s price for premium barn wood.

So we picked our two boards, former floor boards from a barn that was located not too far away from us.  And then I saw them…Treesdale orchard crates.  I grew up in the neighborhood that was built on the site of the former orchard.  And as we all know, I’m obsessed with history and that of all things Pittsburgh.  The orchard was owned by a member of the steel barons – those who grew wealthy off of the production of steel through oligopolies.  I had to have it.

Chris was gracious about me spending $55 on an apple crate from the 50’s (which is the same era as our house). And off we went in search of hardware.  We found a simple, yet strong solution at Rockler a woodworking store.  Over the next four hours, we planned out our shelves, cleaned the wood, drilled the holes (with an extra run out for a longer drill bit) and hung the shelves.

How we made the shelves:

Step 1: measured and cut the boards to the appropriate length.

Step 2: Wiped them down to cut down on the dust.

Step 3: Located the studs in our wall and mapped out where we wanted to hang the shelves

Step 4: Mark the barn wood boards for drilling holes.

Step 5: Mount the hardware on the wall

Step 6: Drill Holes (using three drill bits – a guide, a wider drill bit, and the final bit to get the size just right).

Step 7: Put the shelves on the wall.

Step 8: Admire

Steps 9 & 10: Clean some more with Murphy’s Oil Soap.