condo project: photo ledge

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday!  I had a few productive days off work and spent the time catching up with family and friends, finishing up a few projects, starting Christmas decorating, and spending some quality time relaxing at home.  With a few days off, I was able to finish another DIY project for my friend's condo.

As I mentioned {here}, my friend is an avid traveler.  He also has an interest in photography and takes some amazing pictures on his trips.  I decided to make a photo ledge to display a few of his pictures and also fill some space he had over his desk.  Here is what the photo ledge looked like after it was installed (sorry the picture is a little dark…as you can see, we finished this one at night).




The photo ledge was super easy to make and only cost about $10.  I started with three pine boards (two 1 x 4 x 8 and one 1 x 2 x 8) from Home Depot.

I decided to use Varathane's Stain + Poly in American Walnut and did three coats on each of the pine boards.

After the stain was dry, I screwed the boards together with the 1 x 2 x 8 board in the front and the 1 x 4 x 8 boards on the bottom and back.  I wanted the photo ledge to have an industrial feel to it, so I didn't bother covering up the wood screws or using wood filler.  To attach the ledge to the wall, I used three dry wall screws and drilled into the studs.

Luckily, I was able to keep the cost of the frames down through a combination of thrift store purchases, Home Goods clearance aisle finds, and a quick trip to Michael's on Black Friday.  The photo ledge is great because my friend can always switch out the pictures or add more as he travels.