Tree thugging: Getting caught making counterfeit trees.

 People love to bring the outdoors in and I am asked to play Brutha Nature and create trees all the time.  Big ones, little ones, realistic and modern.  So here I am poised once again to create a one of a kind piece for a client, I had to go idea browsing.  We settled on the idea of a tree shaped bookshelf.  One that was modern and architecturally interesting.  So I gathered together a Pinterest board with a variety of tree ideas.

There are lots of ways to create a tree bookshelf system.  I found some that are modern, some folky, some rustic and some really to my liking by being unique.  The trick with most of the trees is considering the fact that they must hold the weight of books and of course the weight of an adventurous child deciding to climb them.  If I were to offer a hint to any DIY'er out there, be sure to add branches or branch tips that point in a downward direction to act like a bracket.  These will bear the weight.

You can see in the tree that I built, there are angles and pieces that point downward.  These provide vertical strength, so the shelf can't be pulled down or tip down off the wall.

My client is a pediatric dental office.  The bookshelf is going to be used dozens of times a day so I made it very robust, the scale and size more suited for a service industry environment.   As you can see it's a series of branches attached to a trunk.  The trickiest part is cutting the angles to match branch and support.

I'm a bit obsessive with building things straight and true.  So this tree stands perfectly upright, the backing is all on the same plane.  Great you think...but no, I mean NO!  The wall I was to mount it to had been where a doorway was covered up, so it was really out of whack.  I had to loosen my branches to tip them back a bit.  This left gaps in my seams... oh hell no!  So I went through painstakingly and finessed bondo into every little gap, sanded it and primed it.    The final finish was to coordinate with a maple counter across the room so I faux painted the piece using a series of color washes and treatment with faux finishers graining tool.  A topcoat of shellac gave it that amber wood tone I needed as well as protect the piece as a non-toxic clear coat.  Shellac is safe for little nibblers that put their teeth and mouths on everything.  Remember this is a pediatric dental office.  I'm sure there's some little munchin munchkins giving it the beaver treatment as we speak....gnaw, gnaw, and gnaw.

Jump over to my Pinterest for these and other photographs of inspirational trees.  I've included the following tree bookcases we've made here in the studio.

Other  tree  shelving  ideas  by  Embellishments  studio