Making Tiny Home Shelves With Reclaimed Barn Wood

I uses some more of my reclaimed barn wood to build a long shelf in my tiny house on wheels. This old barn wood is beautiful. It has character and a natural beauty from its age. I never understood all the raving about reclaimed lumber until I started using it myself. The nails leave a stain in the wood through the years and it adds to the beauty of the old lumber.

I have about eight 20 foot truck containers of old barn wood delivered to my property. I am going to burn the bad and broken pieces. The good stuff I will either use myself for my tiny home construction and other projects around the homestead or sell for some profits.

Old barn wood has a lot of value in New York. People in the city love to use it in their apartments and homes. There are more and more businesses building up that use reclaimed lumber. And it brings top price because it is old growth which means it is actually harder than the wood we have these days.

I was told by the man who delivered this wood that it was mostly all oak. But I fear he was wrong. I have been accused of calling it the wrong thing. I am starting to realize this is mostly all pine. It is old pine and therefore it is very heavy and dense. It is much denser than new growth by far.

I cut a 2 x 7 inch piece of old barn lumber to 8 feet long. Then I cut a 2 x 4 piece at the same length. This 2 x 7 is heavy. Very heavy so I thought it was oak. Now that I am looking at it, I am not so sure. I am no expert but it sure is dense. It might be old growth pine.

Anyway, I pre drilled holes in the shelf piece and screwed it to the 2x4 so I could mount it to the wall.

The hard part was to get this heavy thing onto the wall alone.

I moved the table away from the wall and oiled the entire wall twice before starting with the shelf installation. I will not be able to reach the wall above the shelf as easily after it is mounted. The walls are natural homemade wood paneling and I am using all natural treatments on the wood. I am using only pure mineral oil for a preservative.

Next I measured the wall studs and drilled holes in the new shelf where the studs will line up with the shelf. Then I put masking tape on the wall where the ends of the shelf will line up to make it easier to center it alone.

I put a screw into the wood an got the first on into the wall stud, holding my shelf in place for now.

Next I leveled the new shelf and then inserted the rest of the screws. In total there are 8 screws mounting the shelf right into the wall studs. This is now a solid part of the tiny house on wheels.

I am building my tiny home with mostly reclaimed lumber from various sources. So far my total investment for the green tiny house on wheels is under $4,000.

After mounting the old barn wood shelf I gave it three coats of mineral oil with a rag. This first cleaned the reclaimed wood shelf and next preserved and protected it from drying out and cracking.

I will continue to apply mineral oil as needed through the life of the tiny home.

I love my old barn wood shelf in the tiny house.

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