In Love With These Affordable DIY Shelves

One Room Challenge Week 4

We’re so proud of these affordable DIY shelves we built! Welcome to Week 4 of the Spring 2020 One Room Challenge. So glad you joined us! If you’re unfamiliar with this event then you’re in for a treat. Each Spring and Fall, 20 Featured Designers are selected by Linda Weinstein and the ORC team for a 6-week challenge where they each take us along on their journey to an incredible room transformation! Feeling inspired? Guest Participants, like yours truly, with a blog or Instagram account can register and join in on the action. This year, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the challenge includes an additional 2 weeks of work time which is so helpful for newbies like me and Hubby!

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DIY Shelves Inspiration

Our idea for these affordable DIY shelves came while sourcing home decor from West Elm. I saw this beautiful metal and wood shelving collection and it was instant LOVE at first sight! We definitely didn’t love the price! At $50 – $100 each, depending on the size, we decided to build our own!

Hubby built 2 framed wood shelves for a total of $30! He installed one on each side of the large window in our master bedroom. We simulated the metallic look of the West Elm version by painting the framed section in, you guessed it, SW Iron Ore!

Wood Stain

Now let’s talk stain! I was not a fan of staining because the colors never turned out as I’d envisioned. After trying many brands and colors, I came to the realization that achieving what I want would require some MAD SCIENTIST action! So allow me to introduce you to our OWN CREATION – NATURAL AMERICAN!! This gorgeous color was birthed from Minwax Natural stain and Varathane Early American stain. Through some trial and error, this color was created using 95% Natural and 5% Early American stain. If you’re like me and have been struggling to find the perfect brown stain, then I highly recommend trying this concoction! You’ll thank me!

Affordable DIY Shelves – Reveal

I have an affinity for the black and brown combo! It’s just so striking and I couldn’t be happier with the modern, rustic design of these affordable DIY shelves. Check out some of our other woodworking projects for more inspiration:

Office Desk || Modern Bench || Paneled Door || Playhouse Build || Pantry Project

Art Gallery Hallway

So this little hallway update wasn’t a part of our initial mood board! Once the hallway got painted, Hubby came up with the brilliant idea to create a photo gallery aka Hall of Frames! Originally, we wanted wooden frames but when they all arrived completely shattered, I was very disappointed. I returned the broken, wooden frames and purchased METAL ones in black, silver, and gold.

I also received my prints from Shutterfly and I absolutely love them! The architectural theme is our style and I couldn’t be happier with the entire look of this space. Oh, and do ignore the SW Swiss Coffee door. We plan on repainting all our interior doors but that’s a project for another time, outside of the one room challenge!

What You Missed Last Week

What I haven’t shown you is the repainted wall we tackled last week. We switched from SW Pure White to SW Agreeable Gray which is a very light and warm gray! I will share a photo soon with our wall cubby install! I snagged a few home decor pieces from Target as well and received a CB2 delivery so this girl is in home decor heaven!

This Week’s Agenda

COLOR BLOCK is happening!! We’re grabbing samples to determine the colors we’d like to use. Selecting paint colors hasn’t been in my favor as of late, but I’m hoping inspiration strikes and we’ll have some success! Wish us luck!

Be sure to subscribe to our blog and follow us on Instagram to stay up to date on our personal journey in this event. You’ll also definitely want to follow along and see what the Featured Designers and other Guest Participants are working on! Anyone a fan of color block painting?!

Aminah Chung