It seems like everywhere I look at the moment there are kitchens that have done away with the upper cupboards and have instead beautifully styled open shelving for storing and displaying those items in the kitchen that are just too pretty to hide away!
I love this look, and I would happily rip out the upper cupboards in mine right now, but alas, I don't think my collection of well used plastic cups and baby bottles would look as good, no matter how I styled them! :P
Also, at the moment we just need every inch of storage we have for food, pots and pans etc, there is no room for pretty displays in this house........or was there?
We had a blank wall behind the dining table that had a radiator on it...
*side note-if I'm ever lucky enough to get to design my own house, top of the list (well, right after the walk-in wardrobe!) will be underfloor heating, so that an ugly radiator never again dictates what furniture I can have!!!!!!
....and we were in need of storage for the "good" glasses and dishes, you know, the ones that you only use when you have people over and you want everything to match ;)
So we came up with a plan, working around the radiator (more on that in another post) and part of that plan was some open shelving.
I had seen the Bjarnum shelves in a lot of my research on pinterest, and I loved the industrial look of them, and also that the brackets were so streamlined that they didn't take away the look of floating shelves. I wanted chunky, clean shelves, and this seemed to fit the bill. So I picked up two sets and gave them the usual coat of gold paint.
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| Gavin really wanted to leave them chrome but I overruled him, maybe I was wrong?! |
When it came to the actual shelves I knew I wanted dark, matt wood, to tie in with the dining table but also keep the slight industrial feeling we were going for, but Ikea didn't have anything that fit the bill. All their "wood" effect shelving was much too fake and laminate looking, and not even the right colour, so we decided we'd go to B&Q and pick up a piece of wood that we could cut down.
*the brackets completely cover the ends of whatever wood you're using so it doesn't have to be pretty, in fact I think they'd look amazing if you used some really rough pallet wood with them
Luckily for us B&Q happened to sell basic pine shelves in exactly the size and thickness we were looking for, so that saved us a bit of work.
We (Gavin!) stained them with this.....
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| In all honesty I was merely creative director on this project, Gavin did all the work! |
After one coat.....
After two coats the edges were roughed up a bit to give them a "lived-in" look.
And there they are!
I love, love, LOVE them. I can put all my shiny charity shop finds that I gather, magpie-like, on display, and having shelves high up on that wall really draws your eye up and make the room look taller. It's amazing how sometimes putting something into a room makes it look bigger!
Both shelves cost us €50 total, and now I'm looking for other places I can use them, and maybe let Gavin have his chrome version!
As soon as we finish the last little bit of the rest of the "unit" we've come up with for this wall I'll get a post up on it ;)
Tell me what you think!!
Linda xx
