Vintage Wood Cook Stove Shelf

The workmanship and beauty of an old enameled wood cook stove can be awesome but finding one in decent shape or finding the room to add one to your home can be daunting. That was the situation I found myself in. We found on an old farm a battered and broken cream colored enameled stove. The body of the unit was beyond saving and missing lots of parts but the warming shelf was intact. This is a common find primarily because the stove backs are made from enamel tin and bend while the body of the stove is almost always cast iron so it shatters. Upon spotting the battered stove in the junk pile my wife immediately had a vision of using it as a hanging wall shelf but it was up to me to make that happen.

Basic idea:

Use the points where the back would have connected to the stove as a mounting point for a new wood shelf. Yea, that is it. Can you glue? Can you screw? (that's what she said) can you sand? That is it, you got this. Watch the video, find an old stove and just dive right in!

The supplies list was crazy simple but hard to specify because it would be slightly different for each stove back.

1. Wood for the shelf

-I used salvaged lumber, in this case full dimension 2x4 flooring from a box car. We think it is Elm, really nice stuff but I just as easily could have bought a 3 foot long, 12 inch wide pine board from Home Depot and it would have worked awesome.

2. Plywood for the backer

-Since you no longer have a stove to bolt this to you might find it a little floppy. I did. I used 1/2 plywood to give some rigidity back to the unit.

3. Fasteners

-Some screws, whatever would be appropriate for what you are building.