I have been working on framing my basement lately, and wanted to "finish" something. So, I took a break from nailing 2x4s and decided to dress up the plant shelf in my foyer.
Here it is in the beginning.
The plan was to put a board on top with some overhang, and put some crown molding under the lip created by the board. Then, paint it white semi-gloss to match the wainscot (see my albums) below. From other ongoing projects, I had the moldings on hand, just needed a board.
As I was going to paint this, cheap wood was better. Rough dimensions I needed were 88"x16". Menards didn't have what I wanted in a single board, but I did find some edge-glued pine boards, 48"x16" for about $9 each. This was cheaper than gluing up 2 8' boards, so I grabbed two of those and went on to gluing.
I attached a 1x4 to the bottom side of the shelf to give it a thicker apperance, and a little more stability than just gluing the joint (note to self: buy plate joiner).
Then, I spent more attention to working on the project than taking pictures of it:
I Planed the face of the shelf with my Bosch power planer, to get an even face where the edge of the two boards meet. I love this tool and need to find more reasons to use it.
Used my donated Craftsman router on the top and bottom of the shelf with a simple round-over bit, however my bit had some overbite on it, so there was a ridge. Planed again, several passes at 1/64, until the ridge was gone.
Ran the Porter Cable (refurbished) random orbital over everything.
Went to my new Crafsman sliding compound miter saw and cut off the same amount from both ends, to keep the seam in the center. (BTW, sliding saw with laser is awesome).
Damaged side wall(s) while putting the shelf in place. Ha.
Nailed in the base trim and crown with my Campbell Hausfield (refurb) brad nailer. How did people do this without air tools?
Applied vinyl spackle to knots, seams, and damaged walls.
I next caulked any seams with Loctite painters caulk and painted it in place with 3 coats of Valspar Medallion semi-gloss white.
Final results:
I think it looks pretty-good. It dressed up the shelf quite a bit, and more importantly gave me a reason to use some of my seldom used tools in the garage.
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