Once upon a time, I bought two Ikea LACK shelves and mounted them in our living room. They were nice, but they weren’t quite right for the space. Now, they live in the nursery (which works really well) (and no, I’m still not “done” with the nursery, haha).
I was inspired by House Tweaking‘s shelves. It seemed like an easy, affordable way to fill in our wall while maintaining some flexibility in the shelf positioning.
I ran into a problem though: there were several name brand closet shelving systems available at Home Depot and Lowe’s, but none seemed like they’d work. Alas, I was thinking too hard. The store brand (Style Selections at Lowe’s in this case) was the answer. I used three 72″ wall mount tracks ($20), 15 brackets ($52) and five 1″ x 12″ x 6′ whitewood boards ($60). I also used 2″ screws for mounting and some stain (leftover from this).
The second problem: removing the price stickers from the brackets! Holy cow. I tried several home remedies and even sent my husband out for Goo Gone. What ended up working? A bit of heat from my clothes steamer. Peeled it right off! May have burned a couple of fingers in the process too. Ow.
Anywho, I stained the boards and let them cure and de-fume outside for a full day.
Hanging the tracks was fairly simple. Each went directly into a stud. I used a level to make sure they were straight vertically, and a long piece of scrap wood and the level to ensure horizontal alignment. I played with a bunch of bracket positions and eventually landed on this, where the shelves would be about 14″ apart.
Then the shelves went up! Whitewood boards are kind of the worst and cheapest, but I was NOT about to spend $30 a pop on poplar, and the store didn’t have a pine option (which still would have been pricey). And really, what does it matter? Function in the main concern. In spite of the cheapness of the material, the stain really classed it up.
Then I filled it in with stuff. Books, magazines, frames, prints, trinkets and more. I’d like to get a couple of small baskets for the bottom shelf. The top shelf needs some work/balancing too.
The living room was a total disaster when I took this photo. Why?
Couch seat cushion cover washing day! Yes, those are cloth diapers hanging on the drying rack. As soon as the little man is big enough, we’ll transition him into those.
A few items on the living room to-do list:
- Finish filling in the new shelves
- Do something with that vintage bird cage
- Get some new photos in the collage behind the couch
- Paint that purple side table between the chairs (which I’ve actually done, but the finish needs some work)
- Do something with that canvas over the fireplace!
- Replace the cheap ceiling fan (I’m thinking something with a remote control)
- Set up a home office so I can work from home
Do your research on fan remotes… we got two fans with remotes and they are basically just “on-off”. Thus far they have been more of a pain than a help. They trump the wall switch for the fans too, so if your remote dies and you used it to turn your light off, you can’t turn the light back on till you fix the remote. I doubt they’re all that useless, but we didn’t know any better.
Whaaaat. That’s good to know. What a pain!