My 6-year-old got a lot of LEGOs for Christmas. I’m not exaggerating… a set of 2000 miscellaneous blocks, several kits, and an army of various characters. And that’s not even counting the LEGO sets my other kids got.
A few weeks ago at a friend’s house, he saw a shelf for showcasing LEGO characters, and he asked me if I could help him build a similar shelf. Sounds like a December making project to me!
We started by sketching out what the finished shelf should look like. He sketched out a version from memory of what the shelf he saw looked like (sadly, we left his sketch at the store), and then I drew a little sketch to show how I’d cut an 8 foot board to get the pieces I’d need and how I’d approach the corners.
We made a quick trip to Home Depot and picked up some faux “barn board” for our shelf. Because the “aged” treatment was only on the surface of the board, my angled corner cuts kept the entire shelf looking like this, with no unsightly unstained cuts.
The assembled shelf looked good and was fairly sturdy, but my wife suggested a back to prevent characters from falling off the back since my son was planning to keep the shelf free-standing on his desk. I cut a piece of backer board and attached it to the shelf.
I made some of the cuts a little too quickly (that or I need a new blade), so some of the cuts are splintered at the edges, but all in all, I’m happy with how it turned out. My son is also happy with how it turned out, so… project accomplished!
This is day 16 of my 31 days of making.
