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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

(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:

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.

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

 

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