Me and my plank!

Yikes!  Another late post.  In my defense, we are just coming off of our Fall break and today has been "cray-cray" trying to get caught up and all.  Only a few extra days off and I feel like I'm having to completely readjust to a new routine.  But, we all survived.  No one was late to school although some of the kiddos may have had a major case of "bed head".  Oh well!  I even managed to produce a meal at dinner time even if it did come from a box...and no, it wasn't cereal.

Today I decided I needed a quick, easy project to ease me back into the grind.  The project I decided to work on is something I've been meaning to get to and just kept putting off.  It was seriously the easiest project ever because all it involved was cutting a piece of wood and staining it.  It was super cheap too because I already had a plank of wood sitting in my basement.  But even still, the project wouldn't cost more than $10 if you needed to run out and buy all the supplies.

Are you dying to know what I made?

Here it is...a bathtub shelf

It really is as primitive and minimalist as it gets.  Me find wood.  Me put wood on tub.

But truthfully, that's the look I was going for.  I wanted it to look like, well, that I found a piece of wood and set it across the tub.  There are all sorts of tutorials out there for more involved and elaborate tub shelves...just in case you were wondering though.

The shelf, though not overly functional is adequate enough for resting a few candles on as well as the occasional book or rag mag...and possibly a cupcake or two.

I started off by measuring the width of my tub, which was about 31 inches.  I used an 8 inch wide/10 foot long piece of lumber and cut off a 36 inch piece...mainly because it is an easy number to remember.

Then I distressed it.  I looked all over for  the medieval torture device I made when I distressed my laundry room cabinets

but I came up empty handed.  So I ended up just beating the plank with a hammer and throwing it on the concrete and jumping on it and grinding it in the gravel on the side of the house and banging nails into it.  Oh, what the neighbors must have thought while I was doing it...probably, "stay inside kids, the weird neighbor lady is beating up a piece of wood".  

But, my technique {yes, I am calling it a technique} worked.  My plank was adequately abused and distressed...and I was adequately amused and de-stressed when it was all said and done.

Finally, I threw on quick coat of stain and was good to go.

I made sure to work the stain into all the "worm holes" really well.

It didn't take long for the wood to dry.  Pine is extremely porous and just sucks the stain right up.

Once it was dry to the touch I set it on the tub and I was done.

The functionality of the shelf is minimal, but is adequate enough for resting a few candles and book or rag mag on...and possibly a cupcake or two.

Now my bathtub {and bathroom} finally feel complete...and all because of a piece wood.