Check out Part I of this post to see the building of these shelves!
We wanted a dark wood stain for the shelves. We’re a little atypical with painting and staining in that (except for walls and ceilings) we apply finishes to everything before the final install. It just makes it easier to pull together the final project without worrying about taping and touching up already painted walls. This means I had to deconstruct the shelves for staining and mark each piece inconspicuously with it’s location so I could rebuild it easily. It’s extra work, but we think it’s worth it in the end for a high quality finished product. We’ll probably write a blog about our reasons one day. Carolyn did all the staining and top coats because she’s way better at finishing touches than I am. In case anyone is wondering we used Minwax Dark Walnut
Just look at this beauty… and the stain looks pretty good too!
Dark Walnut 2716
Carolyn added two coats of a satin polyurethane to the pieces for both protection and also giving it a nice finish, for look and easy cleaning. Have you ever tried to wipe dust off of raw wood? Not fun.
No poly vs poly. Look at the difference!
Minwax Clear Satin Poly
The final step was re-assembling the shelves and of course filling them up with growlers. I mean, what good is an empty shelf? My mom says if there is an empty flat surface, a Hamilton will always find a way to cover it with junk. Truer words have never been spoken (Carolyn would like to interject here that she is a Hamilton by marriage and covered it with non-junk).
Final assembly
The TV went on the top shelf, which meant installing an outlet for it. I think I’ve rambled on long enough here, so I’ll talk about that in another post.
Finally, here is the finished product! Bailey the Brew Dog wanted to help model the shelves. If you pull out a camera in our house, the dogs just come out of nowhere and get in the shot. Sorry for the poor lighting. It’s hard to photograph dark shelves in a poorly lit basement.
Completed Shelves
We’re really happy with how they turned out. The front finishing piece adds a nice touch to clean up the look, but also give a pseudo built-in look. The growler from our favorite Asheville brewery helps too!
We have a whole shelf dedicated to our favorite Charleston breweries, of course.
And other favorites scattered throughout. We’re going to paint the room sometime down the line, so for now we will ignore where I beat up the wall.
The floor needed a little something, so we pulled in a crate that is full of wedding keepsakes that Carolyn had made on Etsy years ago. I imagine we’ll eventually have to move this with Connor getting into more things, although he doesn’t spend much time in the basement, anyway.
All together now! What do you think? We’re in love. And we can’t wait to get a good bar table down here and spend time with good friends and good brews!
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