Jen's Dining Room Built-Ins

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We taped out how we wanted the top to look so that way we could visualize and to make sure Jen and I were on the same page with how she wanted it to look and how many shelves she wanted.

I started by cutting down brown board with my circular saw to the size we needed it for the back of the shelves. I used a foam board and my centipede stand to cut on.

Jen wanted wallpaper on the back wall of the shelving, so we added that before putting the shelving together, we figured it would be easier this way rather than adding wallpaper later. We used this roll on wallpaper paste.

I used 3/4in cabinet grade plywood for the frames of the shelving unites. I used my Can Do clamps to make sure they were square when I screwed them together.

Then I added the brown board with the wallpaper on it to the back. I glued and nailed this to the plywood edges.

I lifted it into place myself, it wasn’t very heavy.

Before I put these shelving units up I did mark where the studs were with a piece of painters tape just incase the stud finder didn’t work through the brown board.

Before putting the shelves and shelf supports in, I stained them Dark Walnut so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting stain on the wallpaper.

I put the shelf supports together ahead of time with pocket holes instead of putting each piece up individually. I laid them on the spot with the tape where I marked the studs and pre drilled a screw into that spot before putting it where it into place.

I put them all up making sure they were level.

These supports are made from 1×2 poplar. For the shelving we got wood pieces so we wouldn’t have to worry about adding edge banding to the edges of the plywood. I attached the shelves by shooting some nails into the 1x2s from the top.

I put them all up only to realize the left bottom shelf was in the wrong place. It was just a tad too high. So I had to redo that one.

Next was the arch. I made this out of a piece of brown board as well.

I pre drilled a scrap piece of wood into the center (width wise) of the brown board to create the arch. I drilled another hole in the end of it and used that hole to put my pen in to draw a half circle at the top of my brown board. This is how you get the perfect arch.

I used my table saw to cut the straight edges of the arch and used my jigsaw to cut the arch out.

Once it was all cut out, I sanded the edges and put it up and attached it with brad nails.

This is the project I was in the middle of when Tyler bought me my Milwaukee battery powered nail gun and life has been so much easier ever sense!

But you do want to make sure your fingers are no where near where you are shooting your nails in at because sometimes nails go sideways and could hit your fingers if they were too close. See below how one of my nails shot out? luckily I keep my fingers away from the area!

I used primed 1x2s for the face frame sides and primed 1x3s up top because I had them on hand leftover from making the drawers/doors. I nailed those into place.

Then I added the top trim. I use these baseboards for this.

I wood filled all the nail holes and sanded and caulked everywhere that needed to be caulked. I know I saw this every post, but I can’t stress enough how important it is that you buy PAINTABLE caulk for projects like this!

I got everything primed and painted Pure White by SW. These are my FAVORITE paint brushes! The bristles are so soft they hardly leave any brush marks at all! If I had thought ahead better, I would have painted the insides of the plywood before attaching the brownboard/wallpaper and shelving. This took forever because I had to be careful with edging the shelves and wallpaper.