You can build this DIY Platform Bed in literally 3 steps. Do you have a Saturday afternoon? Good, because you can make this bed and still have time for a leisurely stroll through Home Depot.

When I was designing Macie’s room, (and lets get real here, any bedroom) one of the nagging problems is that of the box spring/bedskirt. Its just not my favorite. So I decided that a DIY platform bed would be the perfect solution.

The was a little bit of criteria that it had to have. It had to be normal bed height, without using a box spring,  it had to be sturdy, and it had to be pretty. I had already finished the Macramé headboard, and felt like it needed something behind it other than the wall to make it feel more headboard-y and less wall hang-y. That is where the giant wall panel comes into play.

DIY Platform Bed Supplies:

(2) 4×8 pieces of premium plywood. I recommend using the 3/4” thick pieces.

(3) 8’ pieces of premium 1”x4” pine.

(5) Heavy Duty Top Plates (available at Home Depot)

(5) 15” Parsons Table Legs (available at Home Depot)

Cut List:

Please note these measurements are for a standard twin size bed.

Pro Tip: Have the plywood cut at Home Depot before you bring it home!

• Your first 4×8 sheet needs to be cut every 19 inches to make 5 pieces. This is for the headboard.
• Your second sheet needs to be cut to measure 78”x41”  (cut 18” off of the top and 6” of of the side.)  **If your twin bed is an XL you will need to cut your base piece to measure 82” and adjust all of the measurements accordingly
• Measure and cut your 1×4 pine to (2) at 41” and (2) at 80”

Building the Platform Bed

Step 1:  Attach your mounting plates

Measure an inch in from the edges of the platform piece. Attach one in each corner as well as the middle. Screw the legs on, and flip it over.

Step 2:  Attach the side boards onto the platform base.

Make sure that your boards are flush with the bottom edge. We used finishing nails to do this, but if you are putting a bed in a room where they might get stepped on I would use screws at least on each corner and in the middle.

Step 3: Attach the Headboard

Find the place that you are going to mount the headboard (in my case it was the center of the wall). Use a stud finder to mark where the studs are. Attach the pieces of wood to the wall using a nail gun. Start at the ceiling and move down.

By some miracle our boards fit perfectly, but if your ceilings are higher or lower you can add more or less at the bottom (that way it will be hidden by the bed!) Shhhhh under the bed secrets!! Mix up the order of the pieces so it looks uber custom, and not just like a giant piece of plywood on the wall.

(Yes, that would be 2 grown men standing on the bed, its really sturdy!)

And that’s it! The last step is to attach the platform to the wall, just use longer screws and L brackets on the underside and make sure you hit a stud.

Can you even believe how easy this was?

Itching for more info about this amazing room? Check out all of the tutorials here! The IKEA Rast hack and Upcycled Target Lamp Sconces are my favorite!

The post DIY Platform Bed (In Just 3 Steps!) appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

You guys know that I love a good shelf build. Lately the obsession has been with floating shelves, but I got the idea the other day for one that I just had to try out!

You’ll need:

1”x2”x8’ board
1”x8”x4’ board
Picture Hangers
Wood Glue
Finishing Nails and/or Wood Screws

Start by cutting your 1×2” board into 4 pieces. Mine are 32”and 10” with a 45 degree angle on each end.

Attach the boards to make a rectangle.

Use wood glue and finishing nails and make sure that your edges line up!

The next step is to attach the 1×6 that makes up the actual shelf. I decided to use screws for this instead of finishing nails, but you can use whichever you prefer.

If you are using screws make sure to drill pilot holes first so that you don’t split your wood!

Next cut 2 boards down that measure 11 1/2”. On one end cut a 30 degree angle, and on the other cut a 60 degree angle. (because we are working within the 90 degree angle the shelf makes your angles should always add up to 90)

Find (and lightly mark) the center of your shelf then measure out 2” on either side. This is where the inside edge of your angled boards are going to line up.

Attach with wood glue and let them dry!

Once everything is dry, flip your shelf over and attach the heavy duty picture hangers.

So much cuteness right?!

I staged it with some thrifted treasures that I had laying around.

The post $15 Simple DIY Shelf (seriously cute!) appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

After years of regrettable plant killing mistakes, I finally feel like I’ve learned enough to keep them alive (the obvious reward for this situation is to buy more plants!!). Which means…(you know what this means right?) I need more planters. Its like the gift that just keeps on giving.

I have the most beginner DIY friendly for those that are itching to use some power tools but aren’t ready to build anything massive yet. (Or if you don’t have tools, this is such a quick job I’m sure you can bribe your neighbor with cookies and they’ll totally do it for you)  Its kind of one of those projects that you cant screw up.

Find the full tutorial over on Home Depot’s blog The Apron here and get some of my favorite clean up tips here!

To enter the giveaway for a $200 Home Depot gift card, all you have to do is leave a comment below with your favorite type of plant! My current obsession? String of Pearls.

The post Wooden Disk Hanging Planter + $200 Home Depot Giveaway appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

The great question surrounding this room makeover is will she or wont she paint the brick. Like I mentioned in my Feel the Fear post, I decided to keep it dark. (It can always be changed up at a later date) and I’ve been diggin it!

The thing is that it took this massively bright room:

And made it seriously darker:

PSA of the day, if you want your room to feel significantly larger, paint it a light color. When all of the furniture was out of the room after it was bricked it felt pretty teeny.

The easiest way to off set the dark wall was to use light colored art. It gave it dimension by adding another layer and it brightened everything up!

Quite a while ago I pinned this picture from a restaurant designed by Bells and Whistles and have been itching to recreate the wall treatment on a smaller scale. It is pure genius!

A big white piece of art was what the decor dr. ordered and this was the cure.

This project started the way every good project starts…with a trip to The Home Depot. I bought a piece of 1/2” plywood and had it cut to 3 1/2’x6’. I also scooped up about 5 1x8x10’s.

The first thing that we did was start ripping the 1×8’s on the table saw so that they were about 1” square. It is ok if they are absolutely perfect, really really close will work well too.

Start by setting your vertical line. Mark it will a pencil and make sure that it is level and perfectly straight, this is going to determine the angles for the rest of your piece.

Once you have your vertical piece set all you do is work off of it.

Spacing is so simple, you just use scraps in between your dowels.

To attach the dowels I used my favorite wood glue Titebond III. I was originally planning on using the glue to hold them in place and then going back over it with a finishing nailer on the back but the glue held everything wonderfully by itself (I love it when that happens!)

It can seem a little overwhelming when you are looking at all of the angles, but the only thing that you need to remember is that when you are working off of a 90 degree angle (like the one you’ve created with your straight piece) everything will always add up to 90. So if you cut a 40 degree angle, then the one working off it will be a 50 degree angle. This is kind of one of those things that I can explain to you, but I cant understand it for you, you just have to start working and you’ll TOTALLY see what I am talking about!

When I started I was cutting everything exactly to the edge of the board but it was taking FOR.EVER. so I started leaving the edges off.

I taped off a small area for staining.

And everything else got a few coats of white paint.

There was a massive internal struggle about cutting the edges off once it was finished. I mean, they look really cool right? Ultimately I decided to trim it but I still love it untrimmed.

To trim it we used a straight board that was clamped on either side as a guide and used a skill saw.

Mounting it on the brick wall got a little tricky. We ended up drilling directly through the face of the art, through the brick and into a stud. Then I filled the holes and painted over them.

I cant wait for you guys to see the entire room tomorrow!!!

The post DIY Square Dowel Art appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Happy #100reveal Thursday!!

You guys. I have got the COOLEST project for you today. As I was brainstorming ideas for these fun GE reveal® light bulb projects my natural train of thought was obviously to do something cool with light. But we’ve already rewired a light, and made an amazing chandelier for the entryway.

Something different was just what the Dr. ordered.

Something new.

So armed with $100 to The Home Depot, and a GE reveal® light bulb I set out on my quest.

You know when you get an idea that just seems so crazy, and when you tell everyone in your life about it they genuinely don’t understand what you are explaining? No? Just me?

This project describes that perfectly. I have been super obsessed with shadow art lately, but it is always done on such a grand art installation scale.

I wanted a way to be able to simplify it enough to use it in my house. And probably not use it to make human shapes because that would be terrifying to stumble across in the middle of the night.

So after thinking long and hard about it for a minute or 2 I set out to see if it would work. If I could actually do something using light and shadow.

I conducted a little experiment and here is what I learned:

It is entirely possible…IF you have the right kind of light bulb, and the right angle.

The light bulb is critical, it needs to give off enough light to cast a strong shadow and it also needs to be focused. A regular style light bulb disperses the light too much, but a reveal® indoor flood light worked perfectly.

The angle of the light, will lengthen + shorten your shadow, and the distance from the pegs will straighten out the letters (the further away the less skewed they are.)

So with this in mind we started with a little trip to my version of Disneyland…The Home Depot.

I bought a GE reveal® indoor flood light (and a regular one for the before and after) (4) 8’x1”x6”, a 3’x1”x1” wooden dowel and a 2×4’ sheet of underlayment.

After you’ve measured the exact size of the underlayment (this will serve as the backboard for everything) you are going to cut 2 pieces that measure the width of the underlayment horizontally (2’) and 2 pieces that measure the vertical distance between the 2 horizontal boards. This is a backer frame and will give you something to attach the face frame and the underlayment to.

Next you are going to cut 2 boards with 45 degree angles that have an inner measurement that match your underlayment.

PSA:  For the LOVE cut these angles so that they look like this:

Not like this:

Court, I’m talking to you.

If you did not heed the above advice, head back to The Home Depot and buy yourself another couple of boards…#fun.

Once you have your boards cut the right way, use a nail gun to attach them to the back frame.

Then put your underlayment on top and secure it with a few nails.

To make the light I took apart this cute desk lamp that I’ve had laying around and a few spare parts from the Bent Arm chandelier build.

All I did was deconstruct this light that I bought a while ago:

And put it back together with the long arm in between the base and the socket (I wanted to be able to adjust the light angle as much as I need to.)  I also swapped in my favorite twisted lamp cord that looked better and had a higher wattage rating.

Then I drilled a small hole in the center of the frame and fed the cute new wire through. The last bit of light construction was wiring a plug on the end. Its time for a common sense disclaimer, these bulbs can get warm, this isn’t a light that you will want to leave on for hours and hours. Yes? Yes.

Once the light was hung inside the frame (with a small screw) it was time to place the dowels.

I did this part last so that I had complete control over the way that the shadow cast.

Once I measured and marked where my short dowels (they measure 3.5”) were going to live, I used a small amount of Titebond III wood glue to adhere them to the board.

A roll of painters tape works wonders to hold them in place while the glue dries.

Want to see what it turned into?

When the house lights are on and the spotlight is off you have this curious and delightfully inoffensive bit of wooden art on the wall.

When you shut off the house lights, and turn on the spotlight you get a friendly little message:

Amazing right?! I mean, who doesn’t want your decor to actually greet you!!? And for a grand total of less than $50 no less!

Because of the closeness of the light onto the board I was a little curious if you would even be able to tell a difference with the reveal® light bulb. Oh ye of little faith Mandi. Of course you can. Directly on the light it’s a little hard to tell a difference, but look at how much cleaner white the reveal® side is, and how much sharper the shadow. (Bulbs used were 40 W Soft White Spotlight vs 45 W reveal® Halogen Indoor Flood bulb.)

What do you think? Do you love it?!

Its time for another giveaway!! You know the drill, (10) winners will win a $100 Home Depot gift card, and a GE reveal® lighting package, all you have to do to enter is leave a comment and let me know what level of DIYer do you consider yourself to be and/or tell me about your favorite DIY project that you have completed!

The post DIY Shadow Art + Video appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Hey hey!!  Lets chat about closets, shall we?  Some are good, some are bad, most are completely boring.  But guess what?  Boring isn’t a word in our vocabulary any more alright?

The closet in Ashy’s room is pretty huge.  Not walk in huge, but it takes up an entire wall.  When we replaced the carpet with hardwood a year ago, we pulled out the bi-fold doors and made the executive decision that we were not allowing them back inside (think hippy chained to an oak tree style).  So for a year Ashy’s closet has been open (its a good think my mother in law likes to keep things organized!)  When we did my MIL’s office, we build a lightweight sliding barn door out of conduit from the Home Depot, it is still one of my favorite projects.  So naturally the urge to do something similar was ginormous. This tutorial piggybacks a lot of what we did for that project, so check that out if you are trying this out.  The difference is that Ashy had 2 doors, not one.  And so that meant that it had to be a bypass door.  Just for fun, Google bypass barn door hardware.  

It is as much as a mortgage payment.

Daaaaaang.

Double closet doors are something that a huge amount of us live with, and so a solution was in order.  And not the solution of spend all of your grocery money for the next 6 months.  After thinking about it long and hard, I feel like we came up with a pretty great, budget friendly solution.

First things first, lets talk about the doors themselves.

The whole point is to make them as lightweight and sturdy as possible.  

Because DIY (at least Vintage Revivals DIY) is full of failures and readjustments I thought you guys might enjoy the real life situation that we had.  So lets get that out of the way first, that way there wont be any confusion about the instructions. 

When you are creating ideas from scratch sometimes (um…all the time) there can be things that you miss when you are working through the design process.  These closet doors had a huge miss.  Because I had made the actual door before I used the same measuring technique for these ones.  Do you know what that left me with?  See if you can guess the problem from the picture below.

2 doors. 

No bypass.

A GIANT gaping space.  (The doors have to be able to cross in front of each other so one of the doors has to be about 6 inches off of the wall. You could see straight into the middle of the closet from a side view.  It was like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.)  Also, I may have cropped out Court’s “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?” face from this picture…but I get the feeling that you’ll be able to sense the frustration coming from his hand.

So there are a few things added to this tutorial that are compensating for this little situation I created (I’ll let you know what is of utmost importance!)

Start by taking 4 measurements.

1. The width of the wall
2. The width of where the closet doors need to be (Make sure that you are accounting for the bypass!)  *The actual closet door openings aren’t centered on this wall (look at each corner) But I wanted the doors to be the same size, so they bypass directly in the middle of the entire wall, not necessarily the center of the closet openings.
3. The height of your ceiling.
4. The width from the truss on one side of the wall to the next.  We are mounting the hardware into the trusses and they don’t need to be the ones that the walls actually attach to.  You can adjust the eyehooks on your doors to compensate for spacing.

The way that we built the doors themselves are part of the string art design.  If you aren’t doing something like that on them, I would TOTALLY recommend using this tutorial for the actual door structure.

If you are doing something like the string art, lets get started.

You will need:

Premium 1×4’s for the outer frame
Non-premium 1×4’s for the backside (they’re cheaper!)
4×8’ sheets of underlayment (you can have this cut to size at your local Home Depot if you need to)
Drill and bits
Saw
Nail Gun
(4) eyehooks
(4) 2” fixed wheel casters (make sure that they are fixed, you don’t want the kind that can spin all willy nilly.)
(2) 1/2” Steel Conduit pipes cut and threaded to 2” less length of measurement #4 (Home Depot will cut and thread the pipe for you!)
(4) 1/2” 90 Degree Elbows
(2) 1/2” T fitting
(8) Bolts
(4) 1/2”x1” pipe nipples (these connect the elbows to the T)
(2) nipples that will connect the floor flange to the T fitting (we got a bunch of different lengths and returned the ones we didn’t use)  *We ended up using a 3” nipple.
(2) Floor Flanges

Start by measuring and cutting the outer frame of your door.  We mitered the edges at 45 degree angles, but you don’t have to if you don’t love that look.

I marked and drilled the holes for the string art (I will go into detail about these measurements and how to in part 2 of this tutorial tomorrow)

Once all of the boards were prepped, we started assembly.  We used self drilling wood screws, wood glue, and finishing nails the hold everything together.   (Wood glue first, then finishing nails, then a few screws)

We attached both the top and bottom frame pieces to 1×4’s that measure the width of the door.

Then we attached the mitered side pieces to complete the frame.

We filled in the frame with 1×4’s to give it stability and something to attach the backboard to.

The underlayment got a coat of paint before it went into the frame (much easier!!)

It was at this point that we moved them inside and saw the giant disaster.  I will admit, I about lost it.  This was at the exact same time that I was struggling with The Nugget and it just seemed like everything that I touched turned to devastation. But the show (project?) must go on, so I went back to Home Depot, and got a few more pieces of wood and went back to the drawing board.

We ended up redoing the top and bottom frame pieces, as well as the cross pieces to widen each door about 5.5”.

We also added a row of vertical pieces so that there was something to attach the new section of underlayment to.  This isn’t necessary, just a fix for our flub. (You can see it in the picture below)

We attached the backboard to the crosspieces using finishing nails, then puttied the holes. (We obviously had to putty the seam that was created by adding the new piece in.)

We added the eyehooks and wheels to each door (see this post for more info on that!) and took the doors back upstairs.  They fit perfectly!!  I celebrated with an instagram post. (and probably a cookie)

When it comes to attaching the pipe to the ceiling, you need to remember 1 thing.  The weight of the door needs to be on the wheels, not on the pipe.  The pipe/eyehook situation is to guide the doors, not to support them.  Got it?

Once you have your wheels and eyehooks on the doors it is just a simple measurement to figure out how low your pipe needs to hang (I bought pipe nipples in a bunch of different lengths and returned the ones that we didn’t need to make the process easier)

We started by stacking the doors on top of each other and assembling the hardware.

Then we lifted the doors up and made whatever adjustments we needed to (changing out the pipe nipples for something longer etc.) and marked where the pilot holes needed to be drilled. Remember when you are using large bolts a pilot hole is a MUST. 

We finished it off by bolting the floor flanges to the ceiling.

Part 2 is coming at you tomorrow!  Remember, if you are using this tutorial, you will want to read THIS one too!

Questions? Leave them in the comments!

The post DIY Bypass Barn Doors |Part 1 appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Dudes! We are overhauling a 1972 Bell Travel Trailer! Follow the entire series from the beginning here!  Huge thanks to The Home Depot for sponsoring this post!

It seems that with the Nugget, even the most well intentioned projects have gone awry. And OF COURSE that is the case with the door. Could we have just painted it to match the trailer? Sure. How about adding an accent color with it? Obviously. How about figuring out how to replace the aluminum with wood panels? Errrrr.

That was plan #1. From what we could tell, the door frame was in 2 pieces, an outer frame (that you could see) and then an inner piece that pushed the aluminum flush to the outer frame. So I thought it would be a great idea to take the door apart and find out. (Do you know where this is going?)

Its going here.

And here.

And here.

Oh, and of course here.

And then it took severe left turn into a brick wall and exploded.

The frame was in fact not 2 pieces, just 1.

So we figured that we were this far into it. We might as well try to use the table saw to cut a bigger groove in it (in hopes of fitting 1/8” ply inside) which just might have worked if Court didn’t accidentally cut through the entire lower 1/3 of the frame.

That was fun. Its not everyday that you get to ruin something irreplaceable.

In hindsight I would totally have just taken the door off and sold it on Ebay. But you know. Sometimes you just have to try and see if what you have in your mind is even possible. You know?

Now that we weren’t working in the parameters of the old door, and could truly do whatever, I decided that a mid century esq door would be just the ticket.

The original plan (well…the second original plan) was to make a Dutch door because that would be FREAKING AMAZING. But it was not to be. The hinges were built into the actual door frame and that was not something that we were willing to replace. So a simple single door was the winner! (But mark my words. A Dutch door IS in my future.)

Before we go any further lets chat about weight, because that is the biggest factor that you have working against you while you are working on a trailer. The original door was surprisingly heavy because of the thick glass window. (We decided to use light weight plexi for our windows) but we still wanted to make the door as lightweight as possible, so we made it hollow-ish.

To start we measured the width that the door needed to be, and subtracted 1/2” to compensate for the 2 pieces of 1/4” ply that make up the face and back of the door.

We started by building the inside frame

And then added cross pieces that made up the top and bottom of the window. We put in the small vertical pieces that makes up the other side of the window.

Last we put an extra piece where the door knob and lock goes so that it is really solid in that spot.

Then we measured and marked the pieces of 1/4” ply and used a jigsaw to cut the window holes out. This is our jigsaw. It is basically the 3rd member of our marriage.

(When you are doing a project like that and you want the wood to look nice I would recommend seeing of your local Home Depot carries Purebond Plywood, it is beautiful!!)

We decided that instead of nailing it on we would try our hand and gluing and that way, if it needs to be attached tighter then we could nail it. Good news, the glue is AWESOME. We used Titebond III because it is waterproof and has amazing reviews.

We glued one side and let it sit for 24 hours before we flipped it over and glued the other side.

Once everything was dry,  we measured and cut the plexi for the windows with a fine blade on the jigsaw.

The last step was to add the window trim that actually holds the plexi in place and finishes it off.

I debated on using white PVC as trim….

But ultimately decided that even though wood would be WAY more expensive, that it was the better choice.

We measured and cut all of the pieces at 45 degrees. While we were putting the windows in we realized that we had to trim one side of the window trim down the width of a saw blade, so we really quickly (and very carefully!) ran them it through the table saw.

Before assembly we put a few coats of Helmsman Spar Urethane on the door and trim pieces. Spar Urethane is ideal for outdoor pieces and has UV protectant in it. It is really easy to work with too, so that was a bonus!

When you are working with Spar Urethane, you will want to lightly sand between coats with extra fine steel wool, and then wipe it down with a tack cloth. We did 3 coats on our door.

After everything was dry we assembled it and glued with Titebond 3.

I was SO grateful to learn that Home Depot sells a door hole drilling kit. Unfortunately because the front of the door has a 2” overhang we weren’t able to use it the way that it is intended. BUT we still used all of the parts and saved a bunch of $ buying it as a kit.

After deciding exactly where we wanted the knob, we drilled a pilot hole to get started. Then we used a 2 1/8” hole saw to bore the hole into the door.

We did this on both sides so that it didn’t tear through the back end and splinter the wood.

Then we used a 1” spade bit to drill the hole into the side of the door for the locking mechanism.

I am SO thrilled with how this door turned out! WAAAAAAAY better than the one that I had imagined originally.

I seriously want to do this on a bigger scale for my front door. I LOVE how it turned out!!

The post The Nugget: DIY Mid Century Door appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Hey guys!! So Ashy’s room is in full swing and I am loving the way that it is turning out, but most importantly she is loving the way that it is turning out, which makes me love it even more!

I love when you stumble across something that just strikes a chord with you (tell me I am not the only one!) that jumping off point of inspiration is so powerful. Last week  I fell head over heals for this little peg project by Orlando Soria (you guys read his blog right? He is hilarious.) It got the ol’ wheels turning for a way that we could do something similar, just on a large scale.

I felt like the shelves themselves needed to be thick and a little bulky. The best option was to create hollow shelves, that way they could be 2 1/2” thick and not weigh 5,000 pounds.

To make this project you will need:

11 feet of 1” copper pipe  Cut to (12) 11” pieces

(3) _____”x36” Wooden Dowels (they are the ones that have the dark orange on the end) cut to 12”

(6) 5/16”x 3 1/2” Dowel Screws

(6) 1/4”x 2 1/2” Dowel Screws

(6) 1/4” drywall anchors

(3) 2×2’s the length of your shelves

(6) pieces of 1/2” MDF cut to the width and length of your shelf. Mine are 10” wide by 60” long.

(3) pieces of MDF cut to 2” x the length of your shelf. Mine was 60”

(6) pieces of MDF cut to 2” x the depth of your shelf minus 1/2”. My shelves are 10” deep so these cuts were 9 1/2”

Wood Glue

Wood Filler

Nail Gun

Pipe Cutter

Drill

Sheesh that was a long list right!?

Ok. So first things first you need to decide where you are putting your shelves. In Ashy’s room we put them on the wall that the headboard used to live. I love using painters tape to visualize what I want them to look like. That way I can work out the spacing etc. without doing permanent damage.

Start by finding your studs and marking the spots that the dowels need to be drilled into them. If you are using 4 pegs per shelf like I did, take the measurement between the 2 studs and divide it by 3 and mark  (you are dividing it into 3 sections by using 2 pegs. (for example if the width of your studs is 60”. 60/3 is 20. Using your tape measure mark at 20” and again at 40”. The last mark would be at 60” which is where your stud is.)  Make sense?

Most likely your middle pegs will not hit studs, that is totally fine.

Now its time to drill the actual pegs. You should have cut your wooden dowels into 12” pieces. Using your drill, drill a hole down the center of the dowel making it as straight as possible.

When you have all of your dowels drilled its time for assembly. They have these awesome screws just made for a project like this called Dowel Screws (genius name, I know)   Also, you can totally do this part with pliers if you need to, but I used my drill. Pre-drill the holes in to the studs for the end pegs, making sure that they are straight (so your pegs aren’t wonky, but if they are a little wonky like ours were we will show you how to fix that too!)

For the dowels that are going into the studs, you will need to set the screws into the studs before you put them in the dowels (because the studs are stronger than the dowel, the screw will just spin deeper into the dowel instead of drilling into the stud as you are twisting it on.)

Clamp your drill around one end of the dowel screw (make sure it is TIGHT) and drive 1/2 of your screw into the predrilled hole.

Then unclamp your drill and twist the dowel on to the other end.

For the center pegs, you can use the same method to drive the screw into the end of the dowel. Its just a lot faster than using a pair of pliers. Hold off on attaching the center pegs for a little bit.

Put the copper sleeves on all of the pegs that are attached to the wall.

For the shelves themselves, we are using a basic floating shelf build, we are just assembling them a little differently to compensate for the chance of wonky dowels. Take your 2” pieces and attach them to one side of the 10×60” boards with a nail gun. (this is going to give you a shelf with a lip around the 2 short sides and one of the long side.)

Do this for all 3 shelves. Use wood filler to fill along the seam, let it dry and sand it smooth. Learn from my mistake!!  I used drywall putty for this part, and it was pretty impossible to make the seam disappear, so that is why I am recommending wood filler, I just didn’t have any on hand and didn’t want to go to HD again. It is also a pretty great idea to paint at this point. I used Sherwin Williams Pro Classic in Ultra White using this mind blowing technique. I also painted the other 3 10×60” boards that will be the top of the shelves.

When you have all 3 shelves built and painted to this point take them, and the 2×2’s inside, its time to assemble everything!

(Typically when you are building a floating shelf you assemble the entire thing except the back piece. That space is where the 2×2 that is bolted to the studs slides in,  but we wanted to be able to straighten any pegs that might be struggling a little, that is why we are assembling it on the spot.)

Put your shelf bottom on the pegs and put the 2×2 against the wall. Screw it into all of the available studs.

Now its time to attach the center pegs. Drill the holes for the drywall anchors and attach the dowels so that they are sitting flush with your shelf.

Using a small drill bit, drill down through the copper sleeve and into the wooden pegs, then drive a small screw into the hole. This will straighten out your pegs if they are a little off and is an extra security measure to make the shelves sturdier.

Attach the top of your shelf (including along the back to the 2×2 that is now inside of your shelf) using finishing nails.

Because I used the wrong kind of filler, I ripped a 1×3 down to 1/8” on the table saw to use as a face plate. I think that using a different filler would have made it so that I didn’t have to do that, but you can always use an additional piece on the front to cover your seams if you need to. Some of you might be wondering why I didn’t just put the smaller piece of MDF on the front of the shelf top and bottom instead of in between them. I was worried that the weight of everything on the shelf would compromise it, if it was being held up by finishing nails, instead of a board that supports the entire perimeter. I may be wrong, but that was the conclusion that I came to.

Fill any remaining holes and touch up the paint.

I love the way that the white shelves look against the white wall with the little bit of wood and copper,   This is absolutely my favorite shelf build to date.

UPDATE!  I have had a few emails and questions in the comments about how strong the shelves are, so I thought I would give you a little more info! Usually when I get the same questions its because I didn’t do a great job explaining it (sorry!!)  The main strength comes from the heavy duty piece of wood that is screwed into all of the studs on the wall. The hollow shelf fits snuggly around this piece and the shelf is attached to it. This is the standard way that floating shelves are build. Adding the pegs gives it even more stability because the end pegs are screwed into studs as well, and the center pegs are anchored to the drywall. And then the pegs are screwed to the shelf bottom, so it is one giant piece that is (in our case) mounted to the wall in 9 different spots.

This is what it looks like when the shelf is removed. The heavy duty board is mounted to all of the studs in the wall and holds the weight of the shelf. The pegs make it look adorable, and give it extra stability. Hope this clears up any questions, if not, leave them below and I will do my best to answer them!! xo

The post DIY Copper Peg Shelves appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Dudes! We are overhauling a 1972 Bell Travel Trailer! Follow the entire series from the beginning here!  This Nugget project is sponsored by my friends at The Home Depot.

I just need to say, that this project thus far on the Nugget has been my favorite.

The original plan for the little Nugs was to lay this gorgeous hardwood down in a herringbone pattern. Unfortunately after talking to a representative at Milstead headquarters (the company that makes the flooring) about it, I came to the conclusion that it was just not going to be a great plan. Hardwood is designed for use in a climate controlled area. Extreme temperature swings might make it behave like a 3 year old…in the checkout line at Old Navy (why do they do that to us?!)  It is just not equipped to hold up under that type of stress. Spending lots of money on it just didn’t seem like a great plan.

Designing such a small space means that there can only be a few Stars. If everything tries to be center stage than the whole thing turns into a freaking circus. I really wanted the floor to be one of those star players. When I went back to Home Depot, I felt like everything else that I looked at was going to blend in too much. Granted it would be durable and very nice looking, but it wasn’t going to be something that you noticed right off the bat.

So after a heart to heart with myself about it, I decided to take it the completely opposite direction. Hand cut pine 1×4’s that cost us 2 days and $80 (for the entire floor!!). It is such a small space that doing something completely crazy like making your own floor is manageable. Is pine the most durable thing on the planet for flooring? Um, no. But I love character and with the way that we are planning on using The Nugs it is a pretty great solution. And hello, $80!!

I need to give a massive thank you to everyone on instagram that voted which pattern they loved the most. I love it when your friends confirm what your gut is already telling you.

Once I knew what pattern I wanted, it was just a matter of cutting the wood. The triangles needed to have 30 and 120 degree angles.

*One thing to note, when you are working on a miter saw, 90 degrees is 0, you subtract your angle from that. So to cut a 30 degree angle, I needed to set my saw blade at 60 degrees. Because 30 + 60 is 90. (The reason most people overlook this is because the most common angle is 45 and that is exactly 1/2 of 90, so you set your blade at 45.)

This sliding compound miter saw from Dewalt is the stuff dreams are made out of. My little rinky dink miter saw didn’t cut up to 60 degrees, so I borrowed this one from my bro in law. It is at the top of my Christmas list.

This project is EXTREMELY simple, its just really repetitive. (Sort of like the hexagon wall that I did in Dylan’s room)

We went to Home Depot and bought (10) 1×4’s for this project. Then we cut approximately 5 zillion triangles out of them. Jk. It was only 4 trillion.

To make all of the triangles the same I marked a line on the saw base.

Then after I made a cut I would rotate the board and line it up.

Using a 1×4 gave us the perfect sized triangles, I also tried it with a 1×6 and 1×3’s and it is pretty crazy to see just how different the sizing is with adding or taking out an inch or two.

Each triangle got a light sanding on the edges and knots to get rid of any splinters, and then it was time to start laying it down!

We prepped the floor by pulling out the carpet nails and scraping all of the paint and thinset off of the linoleum. Then we swept and vacuumed and swept and vacuumed until we were sure that it was nice and clean.

We started along the edge of the cabinets and dry fit the pieces.

You want to work in kind of a big section as opposed to fitting and nailing down each triangle on its own,  that way you can make sure that everything is lined up before you commit.

Once we were happy with it, we used a finishing nailer to nail it to the floor on each corner. We used 2” finishing nails and double checked that they weren’t going all the way through the underside of the trailer. The nailer that we use and love is this one from Senco, but I have heard really great things about the Ryobi Airstrike Brad Nailer, and its about 1/2 the price.

Working on the edges wasn’t as hard as you might think. We made a template of the triangle out of paper and after lining it up, folded the paper so that we could see the exact angle that needed to be cut.

Inside the closet wasn’t horrible either,  we just used the template and it worked great!

We used wood filler to fill all of the nail holes and finished it off with a few coats of satin polyacrylic.

I am completely and utterly obsessed with this floor.

It is so fun when people see it to find out what shape they see,  the star? The tumbling blocks? Or the triangles?

One of the factors when it comes to working on trailers is adding weight. The total weight added for the flooring was around 40 lbs. Each pine board weighed in around 4 lbs, and we used 10!

Maybe a new floor isn’t up your DIY alley, but um…can you image this pattern on a wall or a table top?! Dreamy.

HUGE thanks to my friends at Home Depot for teaming up with me on this project for The Nugget!!

The post The Nugget: DIY Geometric Wood Flooring for $80! appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Hey guys!! I have had this weird phenomenon happen. Working on the Nugget day and night has made me really appreciate normal home DIY. Like a lot. It seems like the more we use our creativity, the more we have, right? A few weeks ago I shared my die heard obsession over Ben at HomeMade Modern. Apparently I am not the only one that loves him, because Cara, and my Mother in Law both requested furniture using his stacked plywood technique.

Then I saw these adorable modified hairpin legs that the always amazing Emily used and just decided to facilitate a love child between them.

The one thing that was a bit daunting for me was the inevitable use of a table saw for cutting the ply. To me, it is the scariest of all saws, and the one that I am least comfortable with. Then out of the blue I got an email from the folks at GRR-RIPPER. I did some research and the GRR-RIPPER 3D Pushblock looked sort of too good to be true. But I was game for a try.

You.guys.

One pass with the GRR-RIPPER and Court and I looked at each other like “did that really just happen?!” it was AMAZING. Like you know on infomercials how they do something and it is SO simple, and then they smile and have a little sparkle gleam on their teeth?

THAT.

The first project we used it on was for the Nugget (coming down the pipeline soon), but I knew I had to put the GRR-RIPPER to use on a project that I could talk about right this second and share it with the planet!

To make the bench we used 2 pieces of Plywood. While you are at the hardware store, have them rip (2) 4’x8’x3/4” sheets into (6) 2×4’ sheets and (1) 2×8’ sheet.

The smaller 2×4 sheets are going to be cut every 3 inches. (This is going to determine the height of your bench/table top so adjust accordingly.)  3” for me gave it a really hefty industrial butcher block vibe.

We started out by ripping 2×4’ sheets of 3/4” ply using the Smart Hook Pushblock GRR-RIPPER. The underside is rubber and holds on to the wood, and on either end are little gravity hooks that help push the piece along. (they dont actually hook into the piece, they lay flat against the wood if they are on top of it, the magic is when they are hanging off the wood. Major leverage.

As amazing as the Smart Hook Pushblock is, the real magic is in the GRR-RIPPER 3D Pushblock. You guys, this thing can guide a cut down to an 1/8th of an inch. Lets just let that marinate for a sec.

You can practically make toothpicks on a table saw.

The way that it works is truly genius.

You move the sliding bridge so that it is between your saw guide and the saw blade, then you just push your wood through…OVER the saw blade. The saw blade goes between the edge and the bridge and you have so much control. Table saws are sort of notorious for lifting up your material as it is being fed in. That doesn’t happen when you are pushing on the material as the saw is cutting it.

The most important part is that it is safe. Your hands are nowhere near the saw blade.

Cut all 6 of your 2×4’ boards. This will give you enough material for a 4 1/2 foot bench/table.

Wood glue is a must for this project. A thin line between each board goes a long way when it comes to sturdiness.

Stack 3 boards high (with glue in between!) and then on the last one add glue to the top.

Place this glue side down, on the boards that you just installed.

Then using 3” wood screws, attach your boards to the stack.

We did this against a block wall to make sure that it was nice and straight-ish. If its not perfect, its ok, this project rocks the laid back DIY vibe.

Attach the 2 end pieces with a nail gun. (You will just need 1 board for each end, not 3.)

Cut your 2×8’ board so that it fits on the underside of your table.

Real life DIY alert!  The original plan was not to have this support board. But after we installed the legs our bench was looking a little droopy in the mid section (sort of like me!)  so it was a bit of a super hero. Now that it’s on, I really love the way it adds just a little more detail.

I used inexpensive plywood and it was really splintery and needed a good sanding. I recommend 150 grit for a project like this. It will smooth everything down really well without taking the character out of the wood, if that makes sense.

For a bench I ordered these 18” table legs, if you want to make this for a coffee table, I would order the 14”.

We did a little rearranging in Alicia’s Living Room and really love how dramatic the bench is against the black wall. Now just to find some art!

For more info on the MICROJIG GRR-RIPPER visit 3dpushblock.com.

This project was sponsored by MICRO-JIG,  all project ideas and opinions are 1000% mine. (pssst….this thing really is life changing folks.)

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