Rain Gutter Book Shelves
I've definitely hit a nesting phase in my pregnancy! I'm at the end of my two week winter break from school, and in these last three days I've realized: there are no more big breaks between me and mommyhood except Spring break....and considering my ultrasound technicians have said BOTH TIMES that my due date may be sooner than originally thought, Spring break may not be much of a break at all! Crazy!
While it's been great to know that the painting is done, and we have our color theme already pre-determined, it's now about the smaller details. One diy project we knew we would need to complete from the get-go was some sort of book shelving. I scoured Pinterest and came across this post from Sunshine on the Inside on creating rain gutter book shelves- GENIUS!
We decided to use the space between the two windows in the room and measured out the same 14 inches of vertical space mentioned in above blog. The space between the two windows ended up being 45 5/8 inches, and after taking out some room for our window treatments, we decided three 34 inch shelves would be large enough to do the job. We did end up using some frog tape to make sure that this would look good visually in the room, and to make sure that the shelves wouldn't be too low or high when all was said and done.
Next, off to Home Depot! Since the size of our shelves ended up being relatively short, we were able to get by with one piece of 10 foot vinyl gutter (seen here). We also needed 3 pairs of end caps (seen here) to cap off each shelf and some 1.5 inch drywall screws. We were able to get all of our supplies for under 20 bucks! Talk about low cost DIY!
**Here's a tip!! From past experiences, yes many EXPERIENCES, we know what we can fit in our car (aka how far we can push the length limit) and 10 feet just wasn't going to work. We approached a Home Depot worker and asked if they would be able to cut the vinyl gutter, and she said no. She did, however, mention that if we were REALLY nice to the Tool Renting guys, they might be nice enough to cut it for us. It totally worked! We didn't even really have to be that nice! So if you ever have something similar that needs to be cut before you can bring it home, try chatting up those guys. We wouldn't have been able to complete this project without them!
Once we were home, Ryan took over and cut the gutter piece into our desired three 34 inch pieces with a hacksaw. We tried to follow the plan in screwing either end of the shelf and also securing the shelves into a stud in the wall, but, unfortunately, our stud-finder was giving us some crazy read outs about unrealistic stud placement and problemative electricity sources. We decided that since these shelves didn't need to hold anything super heavy (just little kid books!) that we would just screw the shelves into the wall on either end and somewhere near the middle.
After some trial and error with the installation, Ryan realized A.) he get the screw started with the drill before attaching it into the wall B.) that he needed to use a drill extender bit to be able to drill at the awkward angle necessary to work with the gutter's back piece, and C.) that the hardest part of this whole project was going to be keeping the shelves level.
All in all, the work was totally worth it and not entirely frustrating! We love the way they turned out and how inexpensive this project was to complete! What do you think? Would you ever consider trying this unconventional DIY?
Happy nesting!
