Pantry Plant Shelf

Pantry Plant Shelf

Recently, we decided to paint the kitchen. The nightmare took weeks. We struggled over the color and later found that large patches of paint peel off when painter's tape is removed after more than two layers of semi-gloss adhere to it. Our goal was to find a warm color that helped us develop a French café motif. Three colors and seven layers later, we finally agreed that the color shown below was the best for us.

The painting project motivated us to reconsider what we might do with the plant shelf located over our kitchen pantry.

The image at left shows the plant shelf above the pantry. We have struggled with how to make the best use of this compelling space. The lofty nook begs for interesting items to be placed on it, but deciding what might look best on it is more difficult than it might seem. Showy plates typically lean back on their stands and would look awkward that high up. Many objects that might fit on the shelf are too small to be appreciated at a distance. Other objects cause the space to look crowded or are too tall to fit.

It eventually occurred to us that some articulated black railing with interwoven vines might look nice. The challenge was where we might find satisfactory railing without commissioning expensive custom work. We decided to keep an eye out for decorative lawn edging during our regular visits to The Home Depot or Lowe's.

We eventually found a "Leaf Border Fence" in the Lawn and Garden department at Lowe's (Item #101100 - $4.97 each). Each piece measures 18-inches wide and 9-inches high if we were to cut off the posts (One post of the left panel in the photograph has been removed). Hoping it might work out for us, we bought five panels.

We also purchased an 8-foot strip of narrow pine wood. The plan was to cut the pine to size with a miter saw, paint the two required pieces black, and install it as shown at left. We drilled small holes in the bottom rail of the fence and use pan head screws to connect it to the rail.

After attaching one fence as shown above, we decided we needed to set the fence a little farther back and it would be nice to set it a little higher. With this in mind, we used 3-inch deck screws to use as posts in the black pine and attached the fence panels over the makeshift posts. We then secured the panels with smaller pan head screws through the bottom rail.

At right, four fence panels have been installed. We used an air powered cut off tool to sever the posts. To insure a symmetrical appearance on the front side, we cut the center fence equally on both sides to fit. The rightmost post of the side fence panel was completely severed so that it could be matched to the existing post on the front fence for

a single post look at the corner.

Cutting the center fence to size forced us to temporarily remove one of the metallic decorative leaves. At left, the photograph shows where a leaf is riveted back into a position for a complete look.

To fill holes and make the cut fence ends look as if they were welded together we used Fast 'N Final from DAP. This is a lightweight material used to fill holes in drywall, but we have found that the product works great in a variety of applications.

At left holes and seams are filled with the drywall filler.

Once the drywall filler had dried, we "painted" the white spots and pan head screw heads with a permanent magic marker. The image at right illustrates the look after the magic marker had been used. Below, a close-up of one seam looks the same as if it had been custom welded together.

From the kitchen floor, the completed fence shows the potential we had hoped for.


We laced the fence with two artificial grape vines that we found at a local Michael's arts and crafts store.

To complete the look, we attached one of two nostalgic bicycles that we acquired from Collections, Etc. The pair of vintage bikes (Item # 37041) cost just $14.99.

A closer look reveals bunches of grapes on the vine and in the basket of the bicycle. Each bunch was just over $1 at the local Michael's arts and crafts store. They were each attached using black vinyl cable ties.

Click HERE to Return to DIY Projects Menu

Click HERE to Print This Page

Click HERE to Return to Main Menu