Ta-Da! New shelves. And we made them from scratch.

This is what was on the wall previously. While I liked the rails, they have been there for many years and I was ready for a change. So we took these IKEA rails down and replaced them with the gallery rail shelves.

The new shelves give a more traditional look rather than the farmhouse look of the black rails. And the shelves allow more places for more plants. Yay!

This is the wood we used and cut down to two 24 inch long pieces.

I lightly sanded and stained the wood using the same Early American stain we used on our wood floors. I opted not to seal the shelves because (1) nothing wet will be placed on them to create rings and (2) the select pine is super smooth which makes it easy to dust even when not sealed and (3) I preferred the matte look with no shimmer or gloss from the sealer.

Just one coat of stain because I didn’t want the them too dark.

I wanted very minimal brackets showing so I went with simple 3″ gold brackets from Home Depot. What I didn’t realize is they were meant to be mounted under the shelves (picture it like a 7 with the shelf on top). I didn’t like that look. To make the brackets work as I envisioned, we carved out the underside of the shelf to allow it to sit flat on the bracket (like an L). Fair warning for anyone attempting to use the same brackets in the same way we did here.

The gold brackets didn’t perfectly match the antique gold of the gallery rail so I used Rub n Buff in antique gold to tone them down. Rub n Buff is a miracle worker!

Here you can see the difference between the original yellow-gold bracket and the antique gold Rub n Buff. You can also see the bump on the bracket which is why we had to carve out the shelf for it to sit flat as mentioned above.

The antique gold Rub n Buff alone still didn’t quite match the antique gold gallery rail so I then mixed antique gold with black Rub n Buff and brushed on with a paint brush for a perfect match.

Here is a quick video of how we made the shelves using gallery rail from Antique Hardware & Lighting. You do have to cut down the gallery rail rod to the lengths needed for your shelves. I missed recording that step but it was really simple.

I love and can’t wait to style over and over again for each season.

Time to buy more plants!