My friend Cristina shared her House Advent Calendar for our November Woodworker’s challenge. I loved the way her house looked and I decided to make my own house cubby wall shelf.
House Shaped Cubby Wall Shelf
I sort of followed Cristina’s plans for the cut list. However, I changed up a couple of things. I used ½” stock for the frame, and ¼” stock for the cubby boards of the house shelf.
Design Cubby Shelf
You can see I printed out her plans and was following the color coded details. I worked a little differently than she did. My plan was to glue all the shelf cubbies, then frame them with the shape of the house. I used blocks of wood to try to keep each cubby square. That’s a good plan, but it’s not the best way to keep everything square.
I laid out all the pieces and propped them up to make sure all was well.
Because the plans are color coded, I labeled each piece with the color and the orientation. You can see this one is green and it installs horizontally.
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Clamp & Glue Sections
I chose several sections at a time to clamp and glue. I always use Gorilla Wood Glue. After a few sections were glued, then I started connecting them.
The weather turned cold, so I had to move into the house. My plan was to NOT glue to the frame until the end, but I got confused and ended up gluing a few of the cubby boards to the outside house frame.
Painter’s tape was helpful to hold the joints together until the glue set up. It did take a couple of days because of waiting for that. Full disclosure: I made a mistake with one of the VERY first sections I put together. The color on the plans was brown, but I mistook it for dark violet. Therefore, near the end, I had to make some different arrangements.
It got a little crazy with all the clamps! I used dabs of painter’s tape to keep track of the cubby holes so this could be used as a Advent Calendar in addition to a cubby wall shelf.
Using Painter's Tape for Clamping
Again, the painter’s tape was so great to hold the corners together before I glued the house frame.
I used 4x4’s to square the joints of the house cubby wall shelf. Had I not taped the corners of the blocks, they would have glued themselves to the cubby. This trick has been done before when I repaired a headboard.
Sand Everything Smooth
Using a sanding sponge is smoothed all the edges, inside and out. This is a necessary step before painting.
Use Jigsaw to Cut Thin Plywood
I drew the outline of the cubby wall shelf on a piece of thin plywood and cut the shape with my jigsaw.
How to Paint Cubby Wall Shelf
Of course, I used my Homeright Super Finish Max to primer this monster. But, again the weather turned cold and I had to work indoors. I tried to paint a topcoat by hand and it was horrible!
I did two more light topcoats outside with the Finish Max.
House Shaped Cubby Wall Shelf for Home Decor
This thing is really large. I did end up gluing and tacking the outside frame with my nail gun.
All of these Christmas decor items came from dollar stores. I staged it for Christmas, but this could be used as everyday decor for your favorite collectibles. I highly recommend that you check out Cristina’s project to see how you would like to go about making your own house shaped cubby wall shelf.
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gail
Gail Wilson is the author and mastermind behind My Repurposed Life. She is obsessed with finding potential in unexpected places and believes that with a little hard work and imagination, any old thing can be made useful again, including herself!
Gail reinvented herself during a midlife crisis and has found purpose again. She hopes you will find new ideas for old things and pick up a few tools along the way.
eyeloveknots
This is really inspiring! Love how it's decorated for Christmas. The shelf itself reminds me of one I might find at a flea market. Pinned.
Alexandra
EyeLoveKnots.com
Gail Wilson
Thank you for pinning!!!!
Merry Christmas to you!
gail
Rodney LeCompte
Great job Gail,it takes a lot of patience to put something together like this project.šās up on this one.Its always great to see your beginning and end project.On the 1 to 10 scale definitely a 10šāļø
Gail Wilson
Thanks so much Rodney!
You know it was challenging at the beginning because you saw the puzzled looks on my face!
gail