I loved the look of my barnwood desk so much, I decided I wanted to try to duplicate it in my laundry room.

I have not upgraded to front loader washer and dryer yet.  Honestly, just waiting for these to die first… I figure I might as well get as much use out of them as I can before I need to spend the money.  They were brand new when I bought the house so they are just about 5 years old.

I love the idea of a nice shelf over the top of front loader machines because it gives you that little bit more storage.  Since we need every little bit we can get I came up with the idea of placing a small shelf over the back of my old school set.

I wanted it to be somewhat decorative as well.

I set out to stain them barnwood style.

First, I wanted to give them a nice dark coat like I did my desk.  This is a dark walnut shade by minwax.

Once that was dry, it was time to work in the white wash.  I worked in sections because this stuff cannot sit for very long at all before you wipe it off.

It is best to do this in sections as you can see above, especially in warm weather.  I coated one area, let it set for about 30 seconds and then took a rag and wiped with the grain to get the aged white wash look.

Then I continued on to another section and repeated the process, making sure that each time I didn’t let the white wash dry before trying to wipe it off.

When I was finished I covered it with a few coats of spray on polyeurothane.  See below I stained my wall braces for my shelf exactly the same so they would match.

My husband attached two braces to the wall.  After the braces were attached it was simply a matter of laying my new shelf on them.  It is not attached so if I need to access the area behind my washer and dryer I can without much effort.

Don’t mind the two tones in paint.  I decided if I was going to paint the laundry room I better paint around my new shelf first so I had less obstacles to paint around.  I was changing from the bright yellow to gray.

We even made sure there was a notch cut out for where the electrical plug landed since it was right in straight shot where we needed to hang the shelf.

I loooove this shelf.  Since I am a bit petite (5’1″ to be exact) it gives me a nice low spot to put my detergent, stain removers, and fabric softener where I can reach easily.  Plus the top of our dryer is staying clutter free with the nice spot to set things that come out of pockets etc.

It is perfect!

xoxo