Bicycle Built for a Pair of 90s Coat Rack Shelves

This was a case where the 90s called and wanted their shelves back, but I had to tell them, sorry, no can do. 

After “not” painting the living room and rushing through the $100 dollar guestroom/ office update, let’s just say that the get-er-done approach was trending in our new little home, and I honestly considered hanging both of these shelves from the 90s era, “as is”.

Matter of fact, we did hang one of them in 90s style for a brief period of time. It actually was helping keep the coats and sweaters under control. Then I found a second 90s shelf discard at the thrift store, which brought the total cost for both of these wooden lovelies to just under $10.

The decision to paint them both a bright white for use in the entry way/ basement stairway had become the plan.

Somehow, I also got it stuck in my head, that I should carry the bicycle theme over into the new look. And I could not let that go. Does that ever happen to you? Even if it means you have to try 3 or 4 ways to get it right?

Painted coat rack shelves with vintage bicycle

To paint the coat rack shelves:

My friend, Sharleen, from The Glory Collection Painted Furniture, always shares creative and unique paint techniques on her Facebook page. If you like that kind of thing, check out her page and follow along. She’s inspires me ALL the time.

Sharleen turned me on to this chippy paint technique with a soap from Brassy Apple.

I used Americana Decor Chalky paint in the color Everlasting with the soap technique and, hey, it works!

To transfer the bicycle image:

I tried several ways to transfer this image, and I didn’t like the way any of them looked, so this is how I ended up doing this part:

I used this free coloring page bicycle print.

I tea stained several pages of white printer paper; let the paper dry; and then ran them through the my ink jet printer to make several copies of the bicycle print. I only needed one, but made several because one never knows how something is going to turn out, right?

When the paint was dry on the white painted coat rack shelves and the ink was dry on the tea stained paper, I applied Mod Podge to the back-only of the paper with bike image.

I laid the paper in place and let it dry slightly. I washed the decoupage off my hands, and then tamped down the paper with clean hands until all parts of the paper with bicycle image were decoupaged in place. When I was done, the paper had a pressed-down wrinkle effect.

Note: I DID NOT go over the front of the paper with the Mod Podge because I didn’t want the ink to bleed. From experience I’ve learned this can happen with an ink jet print.

Once the Mod Podge was dry, I used a thin craft paint brush and craft paint in the color: Pavement, to outline the paper.

I have bigger plans for using the storage space along the stairway walls to the basement.

For now, this is one more step in creating a functioning area that keeps the clutter down, so that we can move on to the bigger projects.

~ Amy

 

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