I’m Julie from follow your heart woodworking and I am so pleased to be able to Guest Post at Gail’s great blog My Repurposed Life. Gail is the queen of repurposing and she was the very first follower I had when I began blogging. I consider her to be a friend, even though we haven’t (yet) met in person, so I am honored to be able to guest post here at her blog.
I am a cabinetmaker and make all sorts of things from wood. Often I use pine or pallet wood and sometimes I repurpose found items. This project is a shutter which is turned into a backing for three small shelves.
I began with a shutter that I bought at a local re-use store. I’m using a 12″ x 30″ fixed shutter. By fixed I mean there is no mechanism to open and close the slats.
This is how it looked before and then after I put a quick sloppy coat of white paint over the whole thing. I purposely allowed some of the stained wood to show through in parts (I filled the old hinge and handle holes with spackle first):
I decided on three shelves which I made out of 3/4″ thick pine, because that was what I had in stock. I cut them to 11 1/2″ long and 4″wide. Of course you could do anything you wish to fit your own shutter size.
I put the grooves in the shelf so that they would match up with the middle of each side of the shutter.
This length between the arrows is the length of each slot
The back of each bracket then fits in the slot on the shutter and the top of each bracket fits in the groove in the bottom of the shelf. They are glued in place and there is no need for nails or screws since they are fitted into each other.
On the back I screwed in two triangle shaped hangers and on the front at the bottom I put two hooks.
Please visit my blog follow your heart woodworking where you can see a cupboard with a shutter for a door, how to design and make a buffet hutch, how to make a barn board cupboard and many more projects.
Thank you Julie for sharing this project with my friends! I have made a couple of these, and I think it’s time to make some more…I have the perfect chippy shutters (bifold door halves) in my stash! Of course mine won’t be with a dado. You’re so good at REAL woodworking!
gail
Well, Holy Moly!!! I don’t know which project I want to do first!!! I just happen to have a collection of “Parts” i.e. old windows, shutters, cabinets, old frames, and so on and so on…..didn’t know what I was going to do when I got the items….but boy am I pumped now!! You are genius!!! Thanks for the tutorial info and the supplies info !! now I am challenged to add my own “personal” touch!! LOVE IT ALL!!! Keep it coming!!
I’m happy you love Julie’s shutter project! I hope you stop by often to see new projects.
gail
do you sell these?
My friend Julie made this and she is no longer making them to sell.
gail
LOL….I was on PINTEREST and I saw this shutter shelve, as I clicked on it I was thinking that looks like Gail’s work!….look where clicking on the link took me! Love it…
Julie’s project is so great, I shared it on Friday Finds!
That turned out cute! I love this little shelf.
I have three shutters…I’ve been waiting to do something with–this gives me inspiration!
…enjoyed seeing it, Pat
This is a fantastic tutorial! I have a bunch of old shutters and think I can tackle building one of these shelves because Gail inspired me to buy my own Dremel Trio awhile back. It has a router, and this will be my first router project! Yippee! Thank you, Julie, for a superbly written and illustrated tutorial. Your shutter shelves are awesome!
So very cute. Think I’ll copy for some shelves in my little country store here on our farm. THANKS!
LOVE this! I have an old shutter waiting in my garage….hmmmm…
Thanks again, Gail, for inviting me to guest post.
You don’t need the dadoes for the shelf bracket, you could just screw it in from the back and top. I just prefer dadoes as they really lock the pieces together.
I love the shutter shelf Gail! Nice job from Follow Your Heart…. I could use one of these shelves!
Susan