Charm's New Shelves

Wall Paint Color: SW 6109 Hopsack

Well, they are sort of new:).  We actually installed them in November, but I never wrote about them until now.  I can safely say after 4 months of use that we all love them!  While we considered making the shelves out of wood, we were worried about the sharp corners and hard wood causing injury.  Also wood shelves drilled into studs would easily turn into a fireman's ladder in the mind of a 2 year old, and that wouldn't be good.  Vinyl gutters helped to achieve our goal of creating bookshelves and a reading corner without introducing elements of danger (The gutters are secure enough to hold books, but would bend under the weight of Charm and prevent climbing.  Also the ends are capped so there aren't any sharp edges.)

As for cost, wood would have been cheaper without a doubt.  The straight lengths of gutter were only $5 for a 10 foot length.  Since each shelf was 36" per side x 2 sides x 4 shelves, we needed three 10 foot sections of gutter.  That was the cheap part.  Each end cap was $3 and we needed 8, and each corner piece was $6 and we needed 4.  Our total was $60 using a 10% off coupon.  We didn't need to paint though! Bill just used a hacksaw at home to make our cuts and we screwed them into the studs and at the end of each shelf.  They are safe and secure (and cute and practical!).

And in case you're interested, we first taped the proposed location of the shelves on the wall so we could get a feel for the length and spacing of the shelves.  We ended up spacing the shelves 14 inches apart from the top of one shelf to the top of the next shelf.

Has anyone else jumped on the gutter bookshelf bandwagon?

Have a super weekend!

Linking up to Finding Fabulous
Linking up to The Shabby Nest.
Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick.

4/23/2012 Update:  Here are some images of the drywall screws that we used to attach the bookshelves.  We used 1.5" drywall screws placed at a slight angle into studs in the corner of the shelves and in the middle of each shelf.  We also put one screw into each end piece (not in the stud) when Command Hooks failed to hold the shelves flat to the wall on the end.  We didn't use any anchors or special screws.  We just drilled in just under the top lip of the gutter.  Please comment or email with any additional questions.  I'm happy to help!!

End cap screw into drywall.  You could use an anchor here, but we didn't.

Center screw into stud.

Corner screws.  One on each wall through the stud.

11/30/12 Update: WALL PAINT COLOR INFORMATION: Sherwin Williams 6109 Hopsack.  I finally found the paint can that corresponds to this room!!  (The wall color was inherited from our home's previous owners.)

It's A Tree. It's a Gutter. It's a Bookshelf!!

We're considering adding some bookshelves in our house in the near future, and I've been finding myself pinning bookshelves like crazy on Pinterest.  Here are some images that I've found:

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Isn't this amazing?  I believe it's made from metal.

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These shelves are made from rain gutters.  How clever is that?  Something like this may end up in Charm's room.

via Pinterest

I'm not sure if this is the most practical bookshelf, but visually, it's amazing!

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I love this honeycomb bookshelf!

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Very interesting concept, as well.

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Do you see what I see?  It's a tree!

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This image is one I've been thinking about for quite awhile.  It was made from an Ana White Plan.

All of these images inspired me to make some no cost changes to the bookshelves in our great room this weekend.  Behold, the rainbow bookshelf:

Sure, it's heavy on the red, white and blue books, but it's a start!

And here is a halloween themed change that remains a work in progress.  I'll be on a black book hunt at Goodwill for the next couple weeks.  Can you guess what it is?

Here's a big, big hint:):

It's a witch hat made of black books!

I pulled the chalkboard from our pantry.  I'm tempted to paint it orange so it stands out more from the wall color, but then I'd have to buy a new chalkboard for the pantry....we'll see what I ended up doing.

October is without a doubt my favorite month of the year.  The fall colors, the crisp air, Halloween preparations, and Lucky's Birthday too!  We've got a few more Halloween related crafts in the works here that I'm excited about sharing.  Stay tuned:)!