Anyway, we moved. And I love our new house, but there was no wall of built-in bookshelves waiting for us. I didn't want our books just sitting inside moving boxes for months while we figured out what we wanted to do with them. So I unpacked them and put them onto two small bookshelves that we had inherited from the studio house. Since they were free to us, I wasn't going to complain, but they certainly looked temporary as they weren't large enough to hold all our books and they just didn't fill out the space at all.
See:
First I started shopping online, but everything I found either felt a little too generic or was a little more pricey than I wanted to spend. Trey suggested we just build something that we liked, and so then we started sketching out a few ideas.
We both ended up liking this kind of open-shelving meets a diamond shape idea. So, we went for it.
Supplies:
-one 1x10-6ft board
-two 1x10-4ft and 3.5 inch boards
-two 1x10-2ft and 7.5 inch boards
-two 1x10-1ft boards
-12 (or 13*) 8" x 10" shelf brackets
-4 3" x 3" angle framing anchors
-drywall screws with wall anchors
-white spray paint
-power saw (if cutting the boards yourself)
-powder drill
-level
*We bought 13 brackets. You can see where we planned to place them from the small pieces of tape in the photo above. We ended up only using two brackets on the center shelf, but we're going to wait a few months to see if it bows any. If it does, we may add that last bracket.
Altogether this project cost about $120 and took us two days to install. We could have easily done the entire project in one day, but we split it up into a Saturday and Sunday project because we had other stuff to do that weekend. :)
Step One: Cut your shelves to the size you need. In the supply list I've indicated the final sizes of the all the shelves we installed. We actually bought two long boards and cut the shelves to the sizes we needed as this made the project more economical for us. But you could also have your hardware store cut the boards for you.
Step Three: Install your shelves. Be sure to use a level to make sure you get them perfectly straight. Since the brackets are in a specific design, mimicking the diamond shape, we knew we likely would not get to install them all on studs. So we used wall anchors when needed. Well, really Trey did. He did most of this part. Which is for the best because I am notorious for "eye-balling" things. So when levels are needed, I am not always the best person for the job. Ha!
Credits // Authors: Emma Chapman and Trey George. Photography: Emma Chapman. Photos edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.