Cafe Shelf

This was another quick build back when I was building all the patio furniture.

It's a cafe shelf inspired by Ballard Designs.

Obviously mine is gianormous.

Here's the basic tutorial from Beneath My Heart to make your own Cafe Shelf.

Obviously mine was altered from little 2 feet shelves to one 8 foot long shelf.

I bought 10.5 feet of the baseboard for the edges and two 9x11" corbels.

My shelf top is a 1x10 pine board uncut at 8 feet long.

Basically the idea is to add the baseboard along the front and sides of the shelf to make it look thick and a chunky 3" thick, but it's really just a facade, as you can see if you get right under it when you realize it's just an edge.

The corbels make it look nicer too.

My shelf is so huge because it goes above our bed in the master bedroom.  

We have a queen bed and I wanted it to balance the bed and lamps by being wider.

I think I mounted the shelf too high.  I was just thinking it should be in the space halfway from the top of the headboard and the celing, but I didn't consider the height of the objects would be too close to the ceiling if the shelf was half way.  But it already has 4 holes in the wall so it will probably stay.  If I think of something simple to maybe hang between the shelf and the bed it might make it look not so weird.

As far as my plans for what goes on the shelf, I started by buying a few mixed frames from the thrift store and spray painting them oil rubbed bronze. 

 I'm still playing around with the arrangement on the shelf. 

I have a lot of books on there that I actually use so it's already serving as an actual bookshelf, where lots of other stacks of books are merely decorative in my house.

But in the end I wanted the focus to be our marriage.

Each anniversary we've gone on a trip.  Only because my husband makes it happen.  I've never planned any of the trips, I know a lot of couples take turns but I'm just lame and my husband is just awesome.

So I wanted in some way to have each anniversary trip documented somehow.

Not necessarily a picture of us on the trip, because unfortunately all the photos from our 3rd anniversary trip in Chicago were deleted somehow.  Right now all I have is the large framed tapestry of Venice which we bought on our 2nd anniversary trip to Italy (it was more our 2 year late honeymoon).  So some trips maybe just a postcard from the city, or an activity we did would be enough to represent the memory.  The tapestry doesn't have much color, and since everything else is bare, I've thought about everything else being in black and white.

We've only been married 7 years so there's not that much to jam up there yet.  I think I'll fill in the holes with love notes from when we were dating.  Rhett would always draw in his notes to me and some are really funny....and sweet of course.  I guess since no one will really ever be in here but us and our kids, I want to take an opportunity to make it a really personal collection up there.

Even with the frames empty, it makes our room feel a lot more put together.  

My next bigger project for our room is to build new bedside tables.  

Why is it when you buy a bedroom set, it usually only comes with one bedside table?  

Soours don't match and are different heights, thus my lamp sites taller than the other one.