Yesterday, Destri over at The Mother Huddle demonstrated upgrading a cheap set of shelves by adding trim to them. It’s definitely a topic I’ve been wanting to cover, and since hers came out better than mine I decided to show off hers instead.
The first thing Destri did was pick up these cheap (and cheap looking) shelves from Hobby Lobby. According to her post, both combined cost her less than $12. Next, she picked up a miter box and some spare trim.
I have this same miter box. It costs around $8, and comes with a hand saw. It’s plastic, and allows you to cut perfectly straight angles with a hand saw. In the left hand side of the picture you can see the trim she bought. Trim is super cheap.
Believe it or not those are the same shelves, but with trim added! According to her post, Destri used finishing nails to fix the trim to the shelves (you can see them on the front trim piece if you look carefully). If you want to hide finishing nails, hammer them in just a little below the surface of the wood by lining up another nail on top of the first one and hitting it — then, cover the holes with a tiny bit of wood putty.
I’m going to write a longer post about these, but here are the DVD shelves I built a few years ago. In reality they’re white, but I didn’t use a flash in this pictures and they appear yellow. As you can see below, I used smaller trim for the front and sides of each shelf, and used a wider strip for the top. The trim I bought came in white, so I didn’t even have to paint it! I cut each piece to fit using the same miter box Destri used.
Want to upgrade your cheap-looking shelves? Add trim!
Link: The Mother Huddle