Le Petite Project

Sad, droopy shelves (especially the one on the right)

I bought these a while back. On a scale from one to awesome, they get a moderate fail. Seriously, what is the point of shelves that don't even support their own weight!?! (Let alone the tiny weight of other objects that one normally puts on a shelf) The precariousness of their situation was beginning to unnerve me. That and a desperate need for more workable shelf space, I decided something needed to be done.

And then Pinterest happened! Nothing too exciting, really, but I did see something about shelf brackets. So I popped on over to Walmart and picked up a couple brackets. My measuring was off (which is surprising, since usually measuring with my hand is *so* accurate) so instead of bracketing the current shelves, I was going to need to make all new shelves. My brother had some spare 2x10 chunks left over from a project he was doing, and was nice enough to let me borrow his sander.

I did a project a little while ago that required staining, and I really didn't want to take the time to stain and then polyurethane two 15" lengths of pine lumber. So I didn't. Instead I used a thin coat raw umber acrylic craft paint which took like five minutes to dry and then topcoated it with two coats of high gloss clear acrylic spray paint - dry time ten minutes per coat. Unfortunately I had to put the shelves exactly where the other ones were since I wasn't feeling inspired to spackle, sand, prime, and paint (I'm not sure I even have any of that paint left). Fortunately, the one bracket ended up acting as a bookend.

Then came the exciting part of loading the shelves. And boy did I really load 'em. Tada!

With a little more context for size, and look! They're themed!

Sorry for the low quality picture.

Because I took some short-cuts and got impatient, I wasn't confident that stuff wouldn't stick to the shelves if left there for a while, so I put a piece of paper down first that was just slightly smaller than the books. I'm really glad I did because when I checked later, the paper was stuck. (Remember: If you aren't going to be patient enough to do something properly, at least take some precautions)

Honestly, the look is a little heavy for the space, but eh, I just don't care. They work, and I now have room on my other shelf for the books that I'll bring home from work in ONE WEEK!!!