Homemade Christmas Gifts are the Best! Gallery Ledge

There is nothing better than homemade Christmas gifts! Especially when they are built by these three little elves!

Mommy really wanted to add a personal touch to our Breakfast Nook in the form of a Gallery Ledge from My Little Helpers. She got the idea for the shelf from the Book of Hints she gave me for Christmas last year. The Handbook Home by Ana White is a great carpentry book for beginners thru novice. The book's target audience is women, but I love it, too. These ladies are talented and the book is easy to follow. Also most of the projects can be built with only basic woodworking tools. Karen has many of the pages earmarked for the future...as do I. I plan to make the Adirondack Chairs in this book for the Slate Patio this spring.

How to Make a Gallery Ledge

Step 1: Determine the Length you Need

One of the best things about making your own furniture is you can customize it to fit you space. I determined the perfect length for our breakfast nook shelf would be 46.5 inches. Good luck finding a pre-built shelf in that exact length anywhere. 

Step 2: Find your wood

This project can be done with wood you may have left over from a previous project or just laying around in the corner of your basement. The wood can even be beat up and chocked full of imperfections for a nice rustic look (which Karen and I usually go for), but the kids and I decided we wanted this gallery ledge to have perfect squared edges. Plus the kids wanted to "shop for mommy" so off to Lowe's to purchase some hard wood planks. We used 4 inch wide planks for the back and bottom and a 2 inch wide plank for the lip. All planks were 4 foot lengths.

Step 3: Cut to Length

I used my clamps (not pictured) to line up and tighten the 3 sections of wood together and made one cut on my chop saw - this way each of the pieces were perfectly the same length. I did this part - not the kids!!!

Step 4: Assemble the sections of wood - We used wood glue and my finish nailer to attach the back, bottom and lip - being care the seams were tight and square. You could also use a a pocket jig if you have one (I don't - hint) instead.

Step 5: Spackle - Fill any imperfection and nail holes with spackle.                           

Step 6: Sand smooth

I used my hand sander and the kids used sandpaper to make sure all surfaces were smooth

Step 7: Primer and Paint - We primed and painted the ledge with the same paint I painted the trim work of the Breakfast Nook.

Step 8: Mounting Holes

I should have done this step before I primed and painted, but none-the-less I added three countersunk holes (using two sizes of drill bits since I do not have countersink bits - hint) thru the back of the ledge for mounting on the wall.

Step 9: Wrap for Christmas

Step 10: Mommy LOVES it and kisses everybody

Step 11: Hang on the Wall

With help from Karen, we leveled the shelf and mounted the ledge with wall anchors.

Step 11: Add your Artwork - Another of mommy's Christmas presents from the kids were framed pictures. When they were younger we took pictures of each of them wearing chef hats and making homemade pizza for the first time. These were always some of our favorite images and the new breakfast nook gave us the perfect place to display these culinary delights.

Great Pictures!

Side View

Bottom View

Another little family touch are these great Peg People Karen and the kids painted and gave me for Christmas.

 

They even included Carly!...and notice that Luke and I are both wearing our matching Superman shirts - like we do very often!

 

The homemade ledge, pictures and the peg people are the perfect addition

 to the room we eat most our meals at!

Happy Holidays!

Here we go again!...the race before Christmas

The kitchen and breakfast nook shared the exact same floor...which meant both floors were hideous! I finished the breakfast nook floors back in February!...but then turned my attention to the slate patio, so I never got around to the kitchen floor.

Karen has been pining for us to get started on the kitchen for months, but it just never worked out. There were many winter preparation projects and so many fall clean ups...6 fall cleanups - every weekend for 6 weeks! So it is safe to say she was very quick to notice that the snow that hit Niskayuna in early December covered any remaining leaves. I think she said in one breath "Too bad the yard is covered in snow so you can't work in the yard. Let's start the kitchen."








So on December 6th I started ripping up the linoleum, felt, plywood and more felt and black tar. 19 days until Christmas...doable...however we were hosting our 1st Christmas with Nanny on December 13th...added little more pressure.

The process was all too familiar for me. This would be my 3rd time dealing with this back breaking task. Once at the old house, then the breakfast nook at this house and now. The only thing - this floor is twice the square footage of those previous projects! However if we wanted the original wide plank pine floors (a Paul Schaefer staple) I knew what I had to do! My only saving grace was I already knew the exact process I had to use. Back in February I wasted a day trying a large assortment of chemicals to remove the black tar - all for naught. Turned out all that was needed was hot water and a 2 inch scraper and a lot of elbow grease.

Here you can see a tiny piece of my motivation

A small portion of the re-finished breakfast nook floors

Restoring Your Wood Floors

Step 1 - Remove the Linoleum

The linoleum removed pretty easily with a heavy duty floor clean up scraper. I just repeatedly slammed that in between the linoleum and the plywood and peeled up the linoleum. I kept the kids out of the room and work with a mask.
 

At the end of the first evening (2 hours of work) I covered everything with some drop cloths (old curtains) for the evening - after all I had to go to Craft Night at Hillside Elementary.





























The next morning I got to work nice and early. First removing the rest of the linoleum

Step 2 - Remove the Plywood

Gloves and a face mask and knee pads are a must. A mixture of hammers, screwdrivers, crowbars, floors scrapers and good ole brute force were able to remove the plywood, felt and any remaining nails. So many nails!

By the end of Saturday I had removed all the plywood and nails. I covered the floors with drop cloths again for the evening. So far it was 10 hours of total work to get this far. Not Pictured - me laying on the floor (multiple times) waiting for my back to let me get up and start working again. This is very back breaking work!















Step 3 - Removing the Tar Paper

Sunday was a new day. I woke up real early and start boiling water in our biggest pot and the tea kettle at the same time. I would repeat this at least 10 times this day.

Hot Water Method of Removing Tar Paper

• Boil water in the tea kettle/pot
• Pour scolding hot water in a 5 gallon pail
• Dip 4 old beach towels into pail
• Pick up a towel (with thick rubber gloves - they are hot!)
• Let excess water drip back into pail
• Lay towels over the floors in a single layer
• Wait 15 minutes
• Pick up the towels
• Scape the floor boards with a 2 inch paint scraper
• Repeat above steps 2 more times until most of the tar is gone.

Using this method is tedious, you are on your hands and knees for hours, back breaking, wet, dirty, sloppy, gooey work. Sounds fun right?!

 Left - A pail full of muck!

























Above - some of the tools of the trade

Left - hot wet towels doing their thing

Slowly but surely I am making progress

Of course no project would be complete if I didn't get some (or a lot) of help from My Little Helper, Lily.

 Lily spraying hot water into the pantry.

By early afternoon on Sunday I had worked 18 hours in less than 48 hours. I had to stop without doing beneath the stove and the refrigerator to bring the kids to MiSci to see the holiday trains - after-all giving a satisfactory answer to "what are we doing that is fun today?" always trumps finishing a project. I worked on those remaining areas on Wednesday for another 4 hours. In total - 22 hours of being on my hands and knees ripping, scraping, sweating and aching, but it was worth it...

Here is the Semi-Finished Product...

....sanding and staining and refinishing will have to wait until after Christmas...because now it is all about making the house pretty, being merry with family and friends and enjoying time with Karen and my three little crazies.

"Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins" - Buddy the Elf

From crazy and silly to picture perfect sweeties in a blink of the eye!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!