Courtney & Brent - Gray House Studio

Plywood Shelves for our Home Gym

Check out how we made wall-mounted plywood shelves for our home gym.

The past few weekends we tackled a pretty large project for our home gym, a huge wall of plywood shelves with an exposed edge.

We had initially intended to have a large piece of art on this wall but I am learning that it is always a good idea to be flexible when it comes to designing and decorating your home because you never know when a better idea could come along.

After giving it some more thought we changed our minds and decided it would be fun to make the shelves into a form of art by creating a design of different shapes. It is quirky but we love it!

Can you believe we made all those shelves with just one piece of plywood?Check out how we made our DIY wall-mounted plywood shelves below.

*** Thanks so much for supporting our small shop – Moon Rock Prints – this holiday season! ***

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*** Thanks so much for supporting our small shop – Moon Rock Prints – this holiday season! ***

How to Build Plywood Shelves

SUPPLIES

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STEPS

1. We used blue painters tape to first create the shapes of the shelves on the wall. This helped us determine the exact measurements we needed to cut the wood.

2. We bought a large piece of really nice plywood to use for our shelves. We had our local hardware store cut down the piece into smaller sizes so it would be easier to work with and fit in our car.

3. Next, we had to cut down the large pieces of plywood into many, many, many smaller pieces using our table saw.

Brent made a crosscut sled to make the process easier and to make sure each board was cut to the exact the same size.

I helped keep the boards steady. To save time and energy, we cut all the boards to be the same size which was the longest side on the shelves.

4. We wanted the shelves to be nice and thick so for each piece of the plywood shelves we used wood glue to attach the boards together and then used our small clamps to keep them together them while they dried in place.

5. After the boards were dry, we used a miter saw to cut the boards down to size at a 45 degree angle so the boards would go together like a picture frame.

We used a backing board to prevent tear out so all the boards would be nice and smooth.

6. We applied wood glue to each corner of the smaller shelves and then put them together using scrap boards and a ratchet strap that held the pieces tightly in place as they dried.

7. For the large shelf we used the miter saw to cut the piece into two L shapes.

8. We glued the two L shape pieces to the two smaller shelves and then used large clamps to hold the piece in place while the glue dried. This completed the large shelf assembly.

9. Back in the room we used our stud finder to located where each screw needed to go so it was in a stud. We marked these spots with painters tape. We also marked these same spots on the shelves.

10. Before removing the tape on the wall, we used the marks we made with the tape to locate where to secure the screws in the wall and used a drill to make holes in the shelves in the same location to match.

11. We used a Kreg Jig pocket hole jig system to create pocket holes to anchor the shelves into the wall with the wood screws.

12. Finally, we got all of our shelves up hanging on the wall.

I went out one day shopping to try and find items to fill up our new shelves that would fit the right depth, had a vintage/industrial feel, were quirky, and not too expensive.

I am a shopping novice so I was a little intimidated to get all the items in one trip but with my measurements, a tape measure and a photo, I managed to get the exact right amount of items to decorate the shelves.

This bike was a really cool find.

I did measure everything depth wise before I bought it to make sure it would fit on the plywood shelves but I didn’t realize the bike would fit perfectly on the one area of the shelf. It was like it was like the bike was made for the shelf or the shelf was made for the bike.

I love playing volleyball so obviously I had to display my super awesome summer 2012 runner-up Parks & Recreation co-ed volleyball team plaque from back when I lived in Dallas. We did win a couple of seasons but somehow when we got runner-up it was my turn to take the plaque home.

Funny how that works…oh well. I have been waiting patiently to find a place to showcase this beauty. Haha.

We are extremely happy with how the shelves turned out. They are quirky and fun which makes us happy. If there was anywhere you could get away with eclectic shelving, I think a home gym is the place.

I would like to report that since the shelves went up in the home gym last weekend I have worked out in there 4 out of the 5 week days this week which is my new record since we bought the treadmill. Is there a correlation? Maybe, just maybe.

The room is shaping up to be a really enjoyable space to spend our time. We only have a few projects left in this room which include building a locker area, new lighting, building a stand for weights, and to do something cool with the window. We can’t wait to get this room finished!

In the meantime be sure to catch up on some of our other home gym projects:
painting a faux brick wall, yoga mat rack, gym details, vintage gymnasium clock, choosing gym floor mats

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DIY Wood Candle Holders

Decor, House Courtney & Brent

We gave new life to old spindles by transforming them into wood candle holders.

Hello! Courtney here today sharing a project that I worked on this past week that meant a lot to me. My grandparents are doing a little remodeling around their house and decided to open up the space above their wet bar by taking down the spindles that ran from the bar to the ceiling. These spindles were original to the house which makes them older than me!

My grandparents gave them to us in case we could use them for a project. I then had the idea to recycle the spindles and use them to make wood candle holders as a gift to give my grandmother for her birthday this week. It came together really quickly with very little supplies and I am so proud of how it turned out.

SUPPLIES

MATERIALS

Oak Spindles
4″ Circle Wood Discs
5″ Circle Wood Discs
Sandpaper
Wood Glue
Rust-Oleum Wood Stain, Kona

TOOLS

Miter Saw

*This post contains an affiliate link. You can read our disclosure policy here.

How To Make DIY Wood Candle Holders

1. I wanted to change the colors of the spindles but the spindles had a clear coat on them so I needed to sand them down. It was a tricky task because of the details on the spindles there were lots of tiny areas to try and sand down. I HATE the sound and feel of sanding so I usually wear gloves and headphones while tackling this process.

2. After I sanded down the area, I stained the sanded parts with our favorite color stain, Rust-Oleum Ultimate Wood Stain in Kona. I put two coats on to make sure it was nice and covered.

3. After the stained dried, I cut down the spindles to the area I stained with the miter saw. I decided to make them varying heights.

4. I made two cuts with the miter saw. The first was to trim down the square part and the second was to cut right above one of the circle sections so I would have a nice flat area to attach my top wood disc. It came out great!

5. Don’t let that bottle fool you, that is not Elmer’s glue but rather super strength wood glue. Brent put it in an old glue bottle to make it easier to use. Brilliant! I used a tiny dab of wood glue to attach the two wood discs to the spindle to create the candle holder.

6. I had a hard time using a clamp to hold the pieces in place without the pieces getting moved off center so I went for option B, old paint cans. Paint is tedious to dispose of which is why we still have old paint cans that were here when we moved in still sitting in our garage. However, they came in handy in this situation. I set them on top of the candle holders to apply pressure.

7. Once the top and bottom pieces were attached to the spindle, I stained the wood discs the same Kona colored stain to match the spindle.

In just a day I was able to give new life and purpose to old spindles. I love the design of the spindles and while they definitely looked out dated in their original location they look perfect as candle holders! Plus, the sentimental side of me loves the fact that they come from grandparents’ home.

We have plenty more spindles and we can’t wait to make another project with them.

Brent and I were super excited to surprise my grandmother with them for her birthday last night. All my hard work sanding was rewarded when I saw her eyes light up the minute she realized they were made from her spindles. It made my day.

Those spindles were a part of their home for 33 years so now she has the best of both worlds. Their home is more modern with them removed, but she has a touch of nostalgia with the wood candle holders sitting on her coffee table.

Have you re-purposed spindles for another use? We would love to hear your ideas or suggestions for our next spindle project.

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Linen Closet Organization

House, Organization Courtney & Brent

This week we took advantage of the extra hour to work on some linen closet organization. There is just something about a freshly organized closet that makes me super happy. Ah, it is the little things like purging old junk and storing supplies in matching boxes to make it a good week.

When we started working on our home gym we pulled all the craft supplies out of the closet in that room and have been “storing” it on the guest room floor for the past three months. It has been difficult to find supplies for our projects. I was anxious to create a system so the next time Brent asks me where our double sided tape is I can give him a definite answer rather than “somewhere on the guest room floor”. Life is glamorous sometimes over here at Gray House Studio.

We have been planning on building a craft cabinet but other projects have come along and bumped it further down our to-do list so we started looking for a quick solution to get all the stuff off the floor (so our guests don’t have to walk through a maze of paints and pencils to get to their bed) and decided that our hall linen closet would be the perfect place to store all of our craft supplies.

Here is what our linen closet looked like this time last week. There were some sheets, some blankets, pillow cases, towels, etc. It resembled a linen closet but there just seemed like so much wasted storage space. It isn’t a huge closet but if organized properly, I was sure we could fit both linens and craft supplies in this space.

The first thing we did was pull everything out of the closet and create an even bigger mess in the guest room and the hall and the entry way. Doesn’t it seem like you have to create a mess to organize a mess? I like starting organization projects with a blank slate so I can get a good idea of how much space I am actually working with.

The one thing that holds me back from organizing is money. It is a dream of mine to have all our cabinets, drawers and closets neatly organized with matching baskets, bins and boxes but I can’t ever seem to pull the trigger on purchasing these items because you can’t just buy one or two you have to buy several and they can add up quick.

This closet was going to take a plethora of boxes because we needed to store a lot of small items like glue bottles, ribbon, tape, pencils, etc. We ended up using three different sizes of the TJENA boxes in black from IKEA.

The price was great ($3.99 for the large box that came with an option to add compartments, $1.99 for the smaller box, and $3.99 for a two pack of the magazine files).

They were paper boxes so I was skeptical about how sturdy they would be but we are very pleased with the quality. They are easy and quick to assemble. I used our label maker to create labels for each of the boxes to create a uniform look.

The large box comes with another piece that you can add to break up the inside into small compartments. It was perfect for storing all of our left over ribbon, yarn, twine, etc. I also used these large boxes to store paper and fabric scraps. I’m just over here in organization heaven.

We use our colored pencils the most for sketching project ideas. I wanted to create an easy way to grab them out of the closet but I didn’t want to spend any money.

I took one of my old candles from Bath & Body Works that just had a tiny amount of wax at the bottom and cleaned it out using a trick I found online which involves pouring boiling hot water into the jar so all the wax can come up to the top of the jar. I let it cool for a few hours so then I could just pop the wax and the wicks out. It works great and I like finding ways to recycle these jars.

After I cleaned it out really well, I spray painted it and stuck my favorite chalk tape onto it. It was a fast, easy and free storage solution.

Once all of our craft supplies were nicely organized in the top half of the closet, I started working on arranging the linens in the bottom half. We purchased two inexpensive wire baskets from HomeGoods. In these we are storing our extra sheets and pillowcases. Eventually I would love for all these to match. All white pillowcases and sheets for guests would be ideal and for the designer in me, look a lot nicer matching in the closet.

We store all the guest towels in the guest bathroom, all of our blankets in our living room ottoman and the extra blankets in the guest room closet. We just don’t have a ton of extra linens to fill up an entire closet in this stage of our life.

What a difference, no more wasted space! Does it mean that we are not grown ups yet if we have more craft supplies then linens in our newly organized linen closet?

It may seem like a strange choice, but Brent and I like making spaces work for us and to use them to create solutions to solve our storage problems or fit our interests and our recent linen closet organization project is the perfect example of just that.

DIY Concrete Countertop

Furniture, House Courtney & Brent

In this DIY tutorial we will show how to make a DIY concrete countertop as well as 5 concrete mistakes to avoid.

Hey everyone! It’s Brent here today sharing all the details about the DIY concrete countertop we built for our coffee bar.

It has been several months since we finished the concrete countertop on our coffee bar and we haven’t been anxious to post about it because it was a pretty frustrating experience.

However, we have been asked several questions about how we made the top of our coffee bar so now that the appropriate amount of time has passed that we can laugh about our mistakes, we are sharing the whole messy process.

This was our first time to use concrete on such a large scale so needless to say there were aspects of making the DIY concrete countertop that were frustrating.

Despite how crazy the process was, we are extremely pleased with the finished result. It turned out amazing. So we are here to tell you the never give up pep talk works.

Before we jump in and show you how we poured the concrete slab, we thought it would be important to share five DIY concrete countertop mistakes to avoid to help others bypass the battle that we went through.

5 DIY Concrete Countertop Mistakes to Avoid

1. OVER TIGHTEN SCREWS IN THE FORM

The walls of the melamine form is attached to the base with screws. If the screws are over tightened the walls of the form will split and warp.

2. FLY SOLO

The plan was for Courtney to document the project but it didn’t take long before I was frantically asking her to put the camera down to help me. Since concrete only has a small window to work with it is important to have an extra pair of hands around.

3. MIX BY HAND

We bought a large tub to mix the concrete in and thought we were prepared because we would be able to mix two bags at one time. We needed five bags for the largest slab.

While the tub did allow us to mix more concrete in a single batch, doing it by hand took way too long and the concrete started setting up in the tub. Plus, the more concrete we mixed in the tub the tougher it was to transport to our form.

A mixer allows you to mix and transport multiple bags of concrete without worrying about the concrete setting up. It is worth $45 dollars to rent a concrete mixer for a day.

4. THINK YOU WON’T MAKE A MESS

We didn’t have enough space in our garage for this project and we figured since the piece of furniture would ultimately be situated in our breakfast nook, we might as well build it there.

We covered the tile floor with plastic and cardboard to protect it from any stray concrete and luckily no concrete escaped the plastic.

However, there was one moment where I slipped coming in from outside with 80 lbs. of mixed concrete in my arms.

It was in that moment while I was trying desperately not to spill any of the concrete onto our kitchen floor that I realized you can’t guarantee a project with no mess and it is best to take every precaution when planning a project.

It is also probably wise to make sure you have plenty of time to complete a project before you begin.

5. BELIEVE CONCRETE IS EASIER TO CLEAN AFTER DRY

Dry concrete flakes off slick surfaces easily but we learned not painted surfaces. We mixed the concrete on our back patio and in the disarray of the time crunch, splattered quite a bit of wet concrete on the house.

Worried about the concrete mix drying, we assumed the concrete splatter would flake off once dry.

Well, you know what happens when you assume. The concrete fused to the paint and the only way we found to remove it was to pressure wash it AND the paint completely off the siding.

Repainting the back of the house has now been moved up on our to-do list. Oops.

Get a FREE digital file of our hand painted Summer Bucket List print over at our print shop website: MoonRockPrints.com

How We Made the DIY Concrete Countertop for our Coffee Bar

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STEPS

1. First we took a 4’x8′ sheet of 3/4″ melamine board and cut into strips.

The width of each melamine strip should be the same size as the DIY concrete counter top will be thick.

2. Once the strips were cut to the correct length to frame the outside of each slab, we used a drill and drill bit to pilot holes for the screws.

First we used a drill bit slightly larger than the threads of each screw and drilled all the way through each melamine strip.

After drilling through the entire width of the melamine strips, we used a drill bit slightly larger than the head of the screw to drill down about 1/4″ allowing the screw to be countersunk below the surface.

To avoid drilling too deep with the larger drill bit we wrapped painter’s tape around the bit to mark the correct depth.

After drilling all the pilot holes we attached the strips to the surface of a second sheet of melamine with screws.

3. To create a water tight form for the concrete, we used black silicone caulk to fill the seams. We used painter’s tape to mask the surface of the melamine and create a clean caulk line.

4. After smoothing the caulk with our fingers, we removed that tape before the caulk dried to create a smooth finish.

The dark color of the caulk made it easy to see where any caulk is out of place.

5. To create the strongest slab possible we used welded steel wire to reinforce the concrete.

After cutting the wire with a pair of bolt cutters we used denatured alcohol and a rag to wipe off any rust.

6. With the form complete it was finally time to mix the concrete.

We used precision grout by Quikrete to make our counter top.

We started by using the recommended water to concrete ratio but realized after the first batch that we needed to pour slightly more water from a bucket than the bag recommended to provide adequate dry time.

7. We poured half the mix into a large concrete mixing tub and all the water from the bucketbefore using a mixing paddle attached to a drill to blend the concrete together.

Once it blended into a consistent mixture, the rest of the dry mix was added.

8. We mixed two bags of concrete at a time and it definitely takes more than one person to lug that much concrete around.

After pouring the concrete into the form we used a trowel and shovel to spread the concrete out.

9. After the first batch was in the form and smoothed out we added the metal wire mesh. We used an orbital sander to vibrate the mixture to shake any air pockets to the surface to create a smooth finish.

We mixed the second batch of concrete and filled the rest of the form. With the entire form filled we vibrated it once more and covered the two slabs with plastic to allow the concrete to cure as slowly as possible.

10. Once the counter top had time to cure we unscrewed the walls of the form from the base but found that it was difficult to remove the boards.

We were able to remove the boards by attaching screws to the side of each board and pulling on the screws with pliers.

After we had the concrete slab loose, we lifted it up and placed it on top of the coffee bar base we built.

We could pretend that we are experts on everything DIY but that just wouldn’t be true.

We are still learning as we go and a lot of the times we just don’t know what problems could arise until we are knee deep in the middle of the project and run right into them.

But the best thing to do is to not give up, push through the challenges and learn from your mistakes for the next time. This was our experience making the DIY concrete countertop.

We hope this post will shed some light on our process of making a concrete countertop for our coffee bar.

Don’t forget to see out how we built the base of our coffee bar as well as check out how our finished coffee bar turned out.

I can’t wait to work on my first woodworking project with my new upgraded dust collector.

*** Thanks so much for supporting our small shop – Moon Rock Prints – this holiday season! ***

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Pumpkin Carving Contest {Winner}

Uncategorized Courtney & Brent

UPDATE 11/01/15: Thank you to everyone who took the time to stop by our blog and cast your vote for your favorite pumpkin this year. We had a great response and it was a very tight race.

No, I’m just kidding it wasn’t even close. The pumpkin that won this year pretty much blew all the others out of the water as the overwhelming favorite.

The 2015 Pumpkin Carving Contest Winning Pumpkin is…

Pumpkin #2 // Grumpy Minion

Which was carved by….

Brent!

Congratulations Brent you win bragging rights for the year (but don’t let it go to your head). Second place went to Doc Brown carved by my dad and third place went to Darth Vader carved by my brother. My hipster cat pumpkin and my mom’s Linus pumpkin followed behind.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in our family pumpkin carving contest. It was really fun and we can’t wait to do it again next year.

I mentioned a few posts ago that my (Courtney) family takes pumpkin carving very seriously. We are a family that enjoys making a friendly competition out of just about anything. Thus, eight years ago this fun little pumpkin carving contest was born.

Each year we look forward to gathering together, picking out pumpkins and spending a fall afternoon outside together drinking apple cider and carving.

We share photos of our creations and invite our friends and family to vote for their favorite. That is when the competition (and trash talking) begins. The carver with the pumpkin that gets the most votes wins bragging rights. It has become a fun family tradition that we look forward to every year.

We have been polling the opinions of our extended family and close friends for years but since starting the blog we have made so many great friends and have such supportive readers that we thought it would be fun to get your thoughts too! Thank you for taking the time to participate in our fun!

Browse through the entries below and the scroll to the bottom to cast your vote. (voting for this year is now over)

2015 Pumpkin Carving Contest Entries:

Gray House Studio Pumpkin Carving Contest 2015

Pumpkin #1 // Doc Brown

Pumpkin #2 // Grumpy Minion

Pumpkin #3 // Linus

Pumpkin #4 // Hipster Cat

Pumpkin #5 // Darth Vader

Framed Book Page

Decor, House Courtney & Brent

To fill in a tricky empty corner in our home library we hung an enlarged framed book page that we created featuring a favorite quote.

Do you have a spot in your home that you don’t quite know what to do with? For us it was a corner in our library. We are closing in on having our library finished, short of our flooring but that is a rant for another day. The library is not huge so we are cautious of making it feel overcrowded with too much “stuff”. For awhile we had our traveling tree filling up this corner.

I call it our traveling tree because I bought this tree back when I was decorating my first “grown-up” apartment. I still like the tree but since we moved into our house I have not found the right spot for it. So I move it around from room to room, corner to corner to act as a temporary fill in for empty spaces. But I never like how it looks there so it ends up moving on to the next empty spot once I find something better to replace it with.

Poor, sad traveling tree, maybe someday it will find a place to call its forever home.

It wasn’t until I moved the tree that I realized how much I didn’t like it in that corner because it was too much next to the love seat. While browsing Pinterest one evening I stumbled across an example of a large framed book page.

A lightbulb went off. What would be better in a library than a large framed book page? It would be just big enough to fill up the corner without looking too crowded.

I remembered that sitting in our closet unused was a huge frame Brent found in the IKEA reject section for $5 that looks perfectly fine. Ah, we love when a project that is a solution to an empty space costs us almost nothing and is easy to quickly put into action.

Our Framed Book Page Project

The hardest part was determining what page in what book out of the hundreds of books we have to use. We sat in our library and flipped through tons of books and then I remembered a line about perspective that I really liked from the Magician’s Nephew (part of The Chronicles of Narnia series). “For what you see and hear depends on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are”.

The line was buried in the page which was all text so Brent and I decided to get creative and create our own fake book page featuring this quote so it would be more prominent. I really liked the title page for the chapter it was in so I scanned that page of the book and opened it up in Illustrator.

I created a new document that was the size we wanted to print so that would fit in our large frame and all the text and graphics would be the right size and resolution. Then I created our new fake book page by adding the the graphic from the title page and typing the book title at the top, chapter title in the middle, the quote we wanted to feature and included the page number at the bottom.

We needed all the text a lot larger so it would be visible and easy to read. We then had it printed, cut it to size, popped it in the frame and hung it up.

The whole project took us about two hours from finding the quote to hanging it on the wall and cost us $5 for the frame and maybe $2 to have it printed.

We had two copies printed just in case we messed one up while cutting it to fit in the frame. While we love building huge detailed projects, we are quite fond of these quick Sunday afternoon decor projects too.

We think a framed book page is the perfect solution to that tricky corner and addition to the library. Plus, since I tend to have commitment issues when it comes to decor in our home, I love pieces that are flexible and easy to switch out. If Brent or I find a new favorite quote from a book we can inexpensively change out the book page in the frame, keeping our library feeling fresh.

Plywood Shelves for our Home Gym

How to Build Plywood Shelves

SUPPLIES

TUTORIAL VIDEO

STEPS

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DIY Wood Candle Holders

SUPPLIES

How To Make DIY Wood Candle Holders

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Linen Closet Organization

DIY Concrete Countertop

5 DIY Concrete Countertop Mistakes to Avoid

How We Made the DIY Concrete Countertop for our Coffee Bar

SUPPLIES

STEPS

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Pumpkin Carving Contest {Winner}

The 2015 Pumpkin Carving Contest Winning Pumpkin is…

Which was carved by….

2015 Pumpkin Carving Contest Entries:

Framed Book Page

Our Framed Book Page Project

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