There was a neighborhood yard sale this past weekend so guess where I was. =]
I snagged one of these shelves:
… for FIVE BUCKS!!! (My neighbor, JB, got one too.) They were a little worn and weathered looking, but that’s okay! The owners told us that they had used them on the back porch of their previous home, so that explains the weariness. These are solid wood and after I realized there was no bowing or warping of the wood in anyway I felt like five dollars was a definite steal.
Plus, it had bead board on the back which I thought added a really cute look. The owners told us that these were old Cracker Barrel displays. How cool is that?!
We were so excited to get these home to start re-purposing them. Luckily I already had some FREE paint from Ace. If you have an ACE around you, be sure to keep a close eye on their sales because I got THREE free quarts of paint. The hardest part of this remodel might have been deciding the color!
I originally wanted to prime the piece but decided to just sand it. I’ve really never sanded anything before so I wasn’t sure what the after effect was supposed to be/look like. I sanded it to rough it up so that the new paint would stick nicely. (It was smooth to the touch.) After I sanded it, I took a damp cloth and wiped out all of the dust. Then I got to painting! I used a foam brush to get into all the crevices of the bead board and then along the edges to make sure I got them covered really well. I wanted to roll the paint on to the rest of it, but then I realized the foam roller I got from the dollar store was useless, so I ended up brushing the paint on the whole thing, which ended up being okay.
Here’s a picture after the first coat:
I don’t know how well you can see in the picture, but after the first coat I was thinking, “What did I do!!?” I really wasn’t liking it. You could see brush strokes galore. But my neighbor told me to just keep going and that it would get better, so I did. She was right, it got better. See…
You can still see the brush strokes a tiny tiny bit, but it gives it some character. Here it is on my porch:
I still don’t know if I LOVE it. Maybe I just don’t love it on my porch? Maybe because everything on my green shelf is green. Green shelf, green candle holder, green grass, green pumpkin. I don’t have a lot of/any Fall decorations yet so maybe if I changed some things I would like it more? Maybe I think the color is TOO bright? Does it look like something that should be in a nursery? It does grow on me the more I look at it, but we’ll see what happens. I’ll leave it like this for a week or so and see how I feel about it….
What do YOU think??
UPDATE: I changed out some of the decor on the shelves and I like it a lot more now. Check it out here.
Runt's Pickins 
I like it!! I think you should get some real pumpkins and stick on that shelf…..
I love this! You did a great job re-purposing this – that’s cool that it was a CB display in it’s previous life – it adds character! I know what you mean about the hard part being picking the color of the paint, that’s usually the hardest part for me, too!
Thank you!! Once the previous owners told us that they were from CB and that they had used them outside but they were still in great condition, I was sold! And for $5 what was I missing if I messed up my first repurpose!? =] The green is a little bright for my liking but maybe one of these days I will take some glaze to it and tone it down a little. It’s still looks mighty cute on my porch right now if I do say so myself =] bright green and all!