Look what my father-in-law brought me! Pretty cool, right? Okay, so maybe you don’t see what I see and that’s perfectly fine. I think I can make you come around.
My father-in-law offered it to me this last summer, but at the time we had just moved across country and were staying with them until we closed on our house so I had no where to take it. And once we were in our new house I had no way of getting it up here. So out by his shop it sat.
I don’t know what it was originally made for. It’s just a bunch of angle iron welded together for some sort of shelving. The lengths of the sides are uneven and the bottom rung is not level. It was also dirty and rusty.
Then it sat in the back of my house. My husband asked a few times just what my plans were with the thing and where it was going. I wasn’t really sure where it was going, but I knew that I needed to get it cleaned up, and painted. He told me to pick up a wire brush attachment for the drill to make quick work of the rusty spots. On my next trip to the hardware store, which seems almost daily, I put it on my list. I had no idea where to find one and didn’t know what to call it. Thankfully, the guy at Lowe’s understood me when I told him I needed a wire brush on a stick. I also picked up the paint and some cedar fence boards to make the shelves.
Before I had a chance to get started on it I talked to my father-in-law and he offered to let me use his sand blaster to get it cleaned up. I pictured some mammoth sized machine needing it’s own room, but he explained that it was just the size of a paint sprayer and it attached to the air compressor. He also said that I would need to pick up some special sand from the hardware store.
He and my mother-in-law stopped by the next day. Not only did he bring the sand blaster, but also a can of sand. It wasn’t the store bought kind. He had found a half bag of playground sand in a garbage can, and ran it through a screen. Alrighty then, that sounds not ideal, but nothing is too good for this gal. I asked if there were any instructions on how to use the sand blaster and my answer was, “Wear eye protection and stand up wind.”
I finally had a day to work on the rack. I got my work area all set up. Drop cloths- check. Tool with no real instructions- check. Garbage sand in a coffee can- check. Eye protection- hmm I don’t see them. Maybe I can just do my normal thing and just squint really hard. Oh, wait, there they are- check.
Everything worked really well, until it didn’t. I was spraying along and then the sand stopped coming. I took the sprayer apart and shook out all the sand from the suck up tube and put it back together. It worked again for a short time, and then it didn’t, again. This time shaking the sand from the tube didn’t work. All my other attempts didn’t work either, banging it on my leg, flipping the little yellow lever on top, banging it again on my leg. Nothing, it was done playing, but at least I had my wire brush on a stick. I still had about 80% left to do and it seemed to take forever. I finally got it brushed enough for my liking, washed clean and left to dry.
A little note: After the rack was all cleaned up my husband did the exact same things I did to the sander and got it working. User error I guess.
Here is the before on the left and the brushed side on the right. Look it started out blue!
Next came the paint. I knew even before getting started that it would still look pretty rough after the cleaning so I bought Rust-oleum Paint and Primer spray paint in a black hammered finish. The texture of the paint makes smooth surfaces look irregular and, well, hammered.
I think it worked.
Painting went quickly and the next day I was on to making the wood shelving. I purchased four cedar fence boards per shelf. I could have just bought a large single board, but it would have cost at least twice as much. This is going to be used outside so I didn’t want to buy anything too fancy. The shelving area of the rack is over 92″ long and 9 1/2″ wide. My boards were only 60″ long and 5 1/4″ wide. That meant some cutting and pasting was in store. I started by setting up the table saw and ripping the boards down to 4 3/4″. Then left two boards 60″ long and cut two more at 32″ to add on for the total length. I staggered the seams to give it more strength.
From the left over pieces of wood I cut braces to go underneath. I glued the sides together and held them with clamps while I nailed the braces to the back side. Screws would have been better, but I was out of stock and I had already been to the hardware store.
I sanded the tops with 80 grit sand paper just to take off the bigger splinters and even out the edges of the boards. As I put the completed shelf into the rack I noticed that not only was one side longer than the other, but the whole thing curves a little and gets tighter at one end. Who built this thing? So I pulled it back out, sanded the tight spots and put it back in. Ah, snug as a bug. But, wait. I’m planning on using this outside. It’s going to get wet and when it does the wood is going to soak up the water, expand and pop all the seams! Back out it came and I ran it through the table saw one more time. Now the shelves are in and it’s looking like a pretty cool industrial shelf for my herb pots.
Now, just how am I going to get it up on the deck? I’m sure my husband can handle that.
I really like how it turned out. I think it would look great as a table for the back of the couch or a book shelf for the living room. If it does come inside, an upgrade to a nice piece of wood will definitely be in store. But for now I’m liking its rustic charm.
One more shot just for good measure.
Have you transformed any old random pieces? I’d love to hear about them.
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