Above the Tub Shelf Mantle

I fell in love with KariAnne’s shelf above her tub the first time I ever laid eyes on it.

karianne's bathroom

I never quite knew what to do with all the empty wall space above the tub.  For years, ours sported a picture with shells…

tub wall before ps

It was sad. Just. sad.

The plan all along has been to get a shelf up there.  The first step was the big old window that I thought would look amazing above the shelf.

hung window

I had visions of a shelf that would not only look pretty, but also be functional.  I thought baskets (like Karianne’s) on it would be a genius way to store things like towels and toilet paper.

However,  once we started measuring for a shelf that deep, we quickly realized it couldn’t be that deep if we wanted to get into the tub without walloping our heads on a baskets of tp!!:)

So, we opted for a shallower version ~ more like a faux mantle.

I painted a 5 in width board (the length of the entire wall) with homemade white chalk paint and washed it with grays and blues and tans to make it sort of look driftwood-like.  Then we glued a piece of trim to the front to make a ledge.

DSC_4241

Our whole house shutters when the front door closes, and I didn’t want things flying off the shelf every time someone walked out the door!

We used a trick I found on another blog, and hung it with these fancy schmancy little corner brackets.

DSC_4242

Then, I hung two decorative shelves underneath that I had also painted driftwoody.

shelf and bracket ps

(You can see the shelf bracket peeking out on the left side.  The shelf is a very tight fit against the wall, so we just used two brackets.  However, if I ever want to put anything heavy on it, we’d probably add a few more brackets.)

Here it is:

tub and shelf ps

I’ve been collecting lots of ideas for some fun neat accessories for the shelf, but for now, I just grabbed things that I already had.

shelf closeup ps

be still sign

One more project is checked off our bathroom redo “to do” list!  Woo Hoo!

shelf and tub ps

 

If you missed them, here are the links to the earlier links of our bathroom renovation:

How to Paint Barker Board

The New Paint Color

The Unexpected Twists and Turns of Renovating

The New Vanity

Homemade Chalk Paint Recipe and a Painted Old Window

How to Hang Heavy Objects on a Wall

Linking to:  The Creative Collection at Classy Clutter

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2 Comments

  1. So nice. Love it. I love how you color-washed the shelf and brackets to match. Have you added a finish to it so it won’t be stained by steam or water? I wonder if you should wax it a couple of times or varnish it? I love the color it turned out and I also love the ‘be still’ picture and the large picture frame on the wall. Well done!!

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