This is an old project, and it's more resourceful than creative. Let's blame it on post-defense, pre-graduation weariness, shall we? To be fair, though, it IS about one of my proudest moments of handiness. You see, when my roomie and I were moving into our current apartment, we opted to fill in our furniture gaps with
IKEA pieces (it helped that there's an IKEA less than 3 miles away). One such piece was a TV stand, a less-than-awesome picture of which is below:
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| This was taken pretty soon after we moved in, hence the empty picture frames and general sparsity. |
Well, as all IKEA shopper-builders know, when you buy something from IKEA that's a bit more complicated than, say, a
mirror or
rug, you have to buy it in separate parts - for the TV stand, that meant the stand/cabinet (I'm pretty sure it came with doors... but possibly not) and the
plinth. Long story short, the roomie and I got a little turned around in the plinth aisle and grabbed the wrong size (because seriously, they all look the same in cardboard boxes). We realized this after we built the ENTIRE stand... so we went with it. Hence the little jut-out ledge at the bottom.
At the end of our IKEA build, we had a leftover piece of wood, which is usually not a good sign. We had attached the stand to the plinth and nixed what was originally the bottom of the stand, as it was unneeded. I still haven't figured out if the leftover plank was due to the fact that we had the wrong plinth or because adding a plinth is optional in the first place (you can do wheels instead). When I saw that extra piece of wood (which matched our living room) languishing away in my roomie's bedroom (it was really her TV stand, so it was her extra piece of wood), I came up with an idea.
Step One: Pester roomie to give me the piece of wood (super easy, because she didn't care).
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| Shelf Bracket |
Step Two: Research brackets. Yes, brackets - we are building a shelf! My piece of wood was 33.25" by 14.25" and roughly 3/4" thick. After looking around and talking it over with my dad (handyman extraordinaire), I realized that I didn't really need anything fancy or expensive - I simply went to Lowe's and picked up a few of
these babies. Since I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be using the shelf for anything heavier than mail, the 100lb capacity was plenty, and I liked their industrial look.
Step Three: Research
wall anchors. I actually did this at the same time as my bracket research, since I knew that our apartment had hollow plastery walls that would need anchors. I honestly don't remember what kind I bought - I spoke with a worker at Lowe's after I picked out my brackets, and he helped me select the kind I needed, along with a few short screws to attach the brackets to my shelf.
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| Click to Enlarge |
Step Four: Planning/sketching. I had to figure out where I wanted the shelf (centered) and how high. I then researched how to go about assembling my shelf (
Do I attach the brackets to the wall or shelf first? Which end of the bracket attaches to the shelf - long or short?). There are all sorts of how-to's online - step-by-step articles (here's one on
putting in wall anchors) and
videos abound. Since I did this all around a year and a half ago, I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but I simply followed the directions I found online that matched my situation (L-brackets, wooden shelf, hollow wall). The tools I used were a drill (I have a cute little Black & Decker one I picked up in Target awhile back), a rubber mallet, and a level, combined with the anchors, screws, and brackets I purchased.
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| Click to Enlarge |
Once I had all my materials and had read/watched my how-to's, the project itself didn't take long at all - by the end of the afternoon, we had a new shelf for the landing strip area of our apartment. I still love it, it works really well to transition the living room into the dining room (which have different styles), and we use it all the time for mail and notes to each other. And guess how much this project cost, total? If you clicked on the wall brackets link (and saw how cheap they are!), you might have an idea already. It cost $6.52. Yup, six dollars and fifty-two cents (thanks, MD sales tax). Full disclosure, the vase and flowers I picked up at Michaels, I bought the clock from Big Lots, and the artwork is actually a framed postcard of a
Sargent painting from the National Gallery of Art downtown. But, you get the picture - and now, scroll down for a few more of 'em!
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| Can you spot the owl pillow from a previous project? :) |
