Kitchen Sneak Peak - Valentines Shelves

Over the last year we have been updating our kitchen, little by little, and nickle by nickle.  Our goal was to give it a well-designed, casual, classic cottage look for as little money as possible. We found free material, researched low-cost/high-impact updates and did all the work ourselves. Anything that did cost money, Chad and I "gifted" to each other for birthdays and Christmas. ("Merry Christmas honey, here is a new backsplash!") I'll be sharing all about our kitchen over the next week or so.

But today I'm giving you a sneak peak (and a "how to" break down) of our kitchen shelves, all decked out for Valentines Day:

I bought the 2 floating shelves at Walmart last Spring for about $19 each. They came with free subscriptions to Better Homes and Gardens. This was a nice little bonus that I gifted to two friends - which saved me a few bucks in our gift budget. 

They are floating shelves, quite sturdy on their own and can hold 10-15 lbs each. This is great because they also don't really put any weight on the decorative antique (aka fragile) corbels I added under them. They came with a metal bracket, anchors and wall screws.

Once I leveled and anchored the bracket to the wall, making sure I hit a few studs, the shelf slid over the bracket easily like so:

After the shelves were attached securely, I added some antique corbels to give more character and age to otherwise modern-looking shelves. 

I found a set of 6 of these corbels at a local salvage yard last year (they were my birthday present). They came from the exterior of a demo'd house. I got them for a deal because they were dirty, nail ridden, and splintered. But with some TLC, wood filler, and a little dry-brushed white paint, they cleaned up nicely. 

 

Since they are a little fragile, I pre-drilled small holes where I was nailing and screwing them into place. I also trimmed the corbels to fit the angle between the wall and shelves better.  Once all four corbels were in place, I caulked everything to give it a seamless look.

The polka-dot banner that is strung haphazardly, I made for a Valentines Tea my daughters are having this weekend.  (I'll be sure to share pics of that party soon!)  It will eventually get hung up over the table, but it added some Valentines color to the shelves for now.

 

I found any red or pink items I could from around the house, added some of our Fiestaware, silver platters and put left-over Valentines into an apothocary jar.

These shelves add so much character where there was none. And they are a great place to add fun seasonal decor into our kitchen. Here's another shot of them for February:

Here's what they looked like in January (pre-corbels):

Stay tuned for more of our Kitchen remodel soon!