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.

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.

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.