Friday, July 9, 2010

Floating Shelves

I have this beautiful living room (well, it will be beautiful. I'm determined that it will be). Sad thing is, I'm insanely intimidated about putting anything up on the walls in there. Therefore, I have these huge BLANK walls staring at me every time I go in there.

I also have this amazing sister in law and brother in law that have these gorgeous floating shelves in their family room with lots of fun pictures of their kids. Every time we go over there, I find myself gravitating toward those shelves just to look at the beautiful pictures! So I finally decided to get some nerves, and some shelves, and put up some of my own!

Here's the before picture of the living room wall. Here are my supplies. Well, minus a few things, but you'll see it all in the finished product. I got these shelves from Home Depot. I bought two 35" shelves and two 24" shelves in espresso. They're super easy to install. I started out over thinking it, but then they were easy peasy once I got the hang of it. You just find where you want to put them up, put up your stud (the piece of unfinished wood) and put in one screw, then put a level on top to make sure it's all nice and straight. Put in the other two screws (on the long one -- only one more on the shorter one). Then put the actual shelf on it. I tried to center it on the stud. Then put in two more screws to secure it to the stud. Then put some cute little stickers to cover your screws. See, super easy!
And, here's the finished product. I still want to put in a huge temple picture right in the middle and get some pictures of my other three kids up there. I think it's turning out gorgeous so far! Oh, and I'm going to put some other letters on the piano, too. I'll post a picture of that later!
Much better, right?

I'm linking up to some fun parties!


2 comments:

Unknown said...

It looks so beautiful! You did such a good job on those shelves! And I LOVE your paint color! It seems we have a lot in common. Redecorating and refurbishing makes me happy, too. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. I don't have as much time to do it as I'd like to, but I still do what I can. I haven't quite ventured out into building quite yet, but I will sometime. Anyway, you are such a sweetheart! Thanks so much for your encouraging words! I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling like this... we can cry together, birthday buddy! Haha. I'd love to get together sometime; how long will you be down? We're actually going out of town tonight & will be gone until next Thursday. Let me know!

Coral said...

Jen, awesome job on the shelves! I love the new look-you've been busy!