Before & After: Cookbook Stand

I love cookbooks. I have a ton of them and I enjoy flipping through them for inspiration. Some of the cookbooks that I have had forever naturally fall open at my go to recipes and a stranger looking through them would be able to spot my favorites by the amount of splatters on the page.

I have been meaning to make myself a cookbook stand in the hopes it would keep my cookbooks a little cleaner and out of the way when I am using them. When I found this little white cookbook stand with decorative painting for fifty cents at the Ann Arbor ReUse Center on Sunday I thought it would be an easier alternative to just buy it and give it a little make over.

The fruit design was a little to cutesy for me  and the finish looked worn and shabby so I thought a fresh coat of paint would spruce it up. First, I thought I'd add a little extra interest to it by adding a top border of drilled holes. I wanted to follow the curve of the top piece of wood so I traced it on a piece of paper and cut it out for a pattern. I then lined it up about 3/4" below the top of the wood and traced the line. I marked my drill holes along the line every 1/2" starting from the center. To protect my work surface I put a piece of scrap wood under the cookbook stand to drill into.

After I finished making my decorative holes I sanded the piece smooth (the previous decorative painting was a bit raised) and then wiped it down to remove and sanding dust. I used a grey spray paint primer and then finished it off with two coats of red spray paint.

I like how the cookbook stand turned out and this was way cheaper and faster than building something from scratch myself. Now I'll just have to start using it to see if keeps things a little tidier when I am cooking...