Friday, June 14

Spicing Up a Bookshelf

This is another one of those projects that's been a long time coming. I found the idea on pinterest about a year ago and finally tackled it this morning. You're probably seen this idea floating around too - turning Ikea spice racks into perfect little bookshelves!

 

And I have no excuse for why it took so long. Want proof? This picture is from when we bought the shelves, and I even put them together. You can use the much smaller, balder baby for reference.


Then they sat in the basement, abandoned and forgotten, until now. Here's another reference point:


But now that we're tackling the big boy room, I realized they would be perfect around his new bed!
I jumped the gun a little bit (can you jump the gun after putting something off for a year?) and painted the first one white. Then I instantly said "Why did I do that?" and realized I liked them much better in the natural wood color. Fortunately I still had three left so B and I got to work hanging them. We (anytime I say "we" feel free to read it as "I____ while B lost screws and dropped drill bits") used some small anchors to reinforce them a little. And I finally tried the painters tape trick I keep hearing about. It worked great! You just put a piece of tape under where you plan to drill like in the pic below. the bottom edge is stuck down and the rest is folded down (sticky side up) to make a little shelf. All the dust lands on the tape! No mess to clean up!


In no time we had the first two up. And I even managed to get all the screws in the right place on the first try. That might be a first. So maybe B deserves the credit? ;)



A certain little boy wasted no time filling them up. And then emptying them again. And then filling them with tools. That's what we like to call a "crazy goose."


And I really like that leaving them in the natural finish lets the shelves kind of blend in with the wall. The books add enough crazy so I'm glad we don't have the shelves themselves fighting for attention too.


And yes, they aren't centered. It's okay. I think I mentioned before that B likes to sleep sideways across his pillow and put his little feet up on the wall. I didn't want to mess up his cozy spot so I tried to leave space for him to stretch out. Sometimes a little boy's sleep habits are more important than symmetry. Trust me.


Since I left some foot space, I still had the third unpainted shelf left over. So we just put that one by the head of the bed.


The big basket that used to hold the paper books can corral the board books now. We literally just had these stacked around the room before. So it's nice to have them all contained. And I really had no idea how many we had until they filled the whole basket!


Here's the whole book set up. I'm really surprised at how many books fit in each shelf! We fit almost a whole basket of books onto the three shelves!


This will be so handy for bedtime reading. Although I have a feeling I'll find three empty shelves in the morning. :)


So far out little bookworm seems to be a fan!


Anybody else done this? How do you store a small mountain of board books?

2 comments:

  1. what a cutie pie! i remember so fondly the reading books to my kids days. they grow up so fast! i love how he can just grab a book from his bed <3. my ds' first ever word was book. then shoe. then he stopped talking for a long time and i thought, oh no, he's never going to talk! and then he started talking about 6 months later, all in french, no more english, and has not ever ever ever stopped talking one minute (except sleeping) since lol!

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    Replies
    1. That's so funny! And awesome that he's bilingual. :)

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