Sunday, September 19, 2010

DIY Built-in Shelves

You mean to tell me you're supposed to have shelves in your closet?

The sad thing is we've lived in this house for four years and still have several home improvement projects on our to-do list. To be fair, some of those remaining projects are beyond our (extremely limited) skill set and require paying someone else oodles of money to do it for us. One of those projects was to make something out of the unfinished closet in our bedroom. Our house is short on closet space to begin with so it's always seemed pointless to have a nice, tall closet with no shelves. I'd already been getting fed up with the lack of storage space in our house and the ensuring clutter, but it wasn't until I saw The Hand Me Down House's built-in shelves that I was inspired and motivated to try to tackle the project myself. Since my husband is a boy and doesn't care about things like closets I was on my own with this one, so it was nice to have the extra online help.

Ugly, pointless, empty closet before

Her tutorial is fantastic with all of the details you could need. I'm not at all experienced with carpentry but with a little help from the lumber cutting department at Lowe's I had no trouble following her steps. I only diverted from her instructions twice: I skipped the caulking step and left off the trim. I like how finished her shelves look with the trim but as mine are inside a closet behind a curtain I decided to save the extra $5. As a result, the whole project cost less than $10. To spruce it up a bit I used some light grey-blue "oops" paint I'd picked up previously to paint the exposed brackets and shelves, stenciled a little design on the wall with the same paint, and lined the shelves with some of this pretty textured wallpaper from Home Depot:


I'm far too proud of myself for being so handy even though the project was so simple. Thirty minutes ago I finally got the nerve to put a few things on the shelves. If I hear a loud crash during the night I'll know exactly what it is. Let's hope my handiwork holds up!


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10 comments:

Amanda @ Healthy House on the Block said...

That's wonderful!! :) You did SUCH a great job -- I LOOOOVE the texture you added to the shelves!! And thanks so much for the shout out!

Blogs said...

hey simple is to be proud of...job well done! i love shelves...i need lots of them:)

Anonymous said...

Great job!! I love it when a project turns out perfectly.

Erin @ The Little Apartment said...

very nice, I'm working on shelving a closet too right now so I had to pop over and see what you did! Thanks for the inspiration to keep on going.

Bella @ Bella before and after said...

Yes, I agree with everyone else, the shelves are adorable with the textured paper, and lovely design on the wall. So cute!!! Great job, and Amandas tutorial is great, I love her :) Thanks again for linking up, and keep the greatness coming, Im all giggly about you joining me :)

Lori@Paisley Passions said...

Great job! I love how you spiced them up with the paper and design. Thanks for linking this up to Thrilling Thursday too!

~Lori S.
Thrilling Thursdays @Paisley Passions

Kimberlee, The Spunky Diva said...

You end results are awesome. I am sure you are getting a lot more use out of it now!
~Kimberlee
www.TheSpunkyDiva.blogspot.com

Lolly Jane said...

that is so clever! new follower from a little lovely..come visit us sometime!

(: kelli & kristi

http://lollyjaneboutique.blogspot.com

Victoria ObSEUSSed said...

What a great idea. I have some cupboards that need some shelves and I just thought I'd have to buy some plastic insert but I like these, they look more sturdy and you made them all fancy too. Thanks for sharing. Victoria- www.obSEUSSed.com

Samantha said...

Thats awesome! I totally see shelf making in my future...