Jesse and I are slowly turning my cute little bungalow into a home for our new life together. We are completely naive and untenured DIYers with one quirky house. We have only the knowledge of Google, fellow DIY bloggers, and very limited prior experience. Basically, most of what we do is in the "Welp, here goes nothing!" category.
This not only applies to our DIY skills, but our life as well. But you can read more about that in our About Us section.
What was the first thing we tackled in our new-to-us home? Shelves. Simple, right?
Ha.
I guess in theory, shelves are simple enough. You pick out some wood lengths/thick boards, stain them, select some sturdy brackets, find your walls studs, and go to town!
Except nothing is ever that easy. At least at our house. What problems, you say? How about a lack of studs in the walls, warped boards due to too much time spent in the garage, and an inability to find " just the right" brackets. Oh, and the walls crumbled when we tried to screw those not-so-perfect brackets into the plaster. Ah, the joys of living with a 84-year-old.
It all started with a trip to Lowes. Shelves? We wound up choosing thinner boards than I had imagined in the kitchen, but our walls are plaster and we were afraid to put too much weight on them. Therefore, thin = beautiful (in this case at least).
And then life happened. We picked out the boards and imagined this whole shelving scenario when we got engaged... or something. It all happened so fast, I tell ya. Pretty soon, we were eloping, and then moving into my our little bungalow and the shelves just got abandon for a while. And then we had our We-Got-Married wedding fest. And my White Products addiction left us with no choice: the shelves had to be mounted (can I say that on the www?).
So, we took our by-then-warped boards, slapped some beautiful matte stain and seal on those puppies, and went to work. Jesse used a stud finder and I used my three wishes as we slowly ebgan to attach the brackets to the wall. It was all such a blur, but I do remember a frantic Ace Hardware run due to a lack of correct hardware. With that crisis averted, we placed and attached the boards into place and then we moved Kayna to the furthest corner of the room. It was go time.
One plate. Two plates. Three plates. Four. White Jug? Check. Weird shaped serving dishes? Check. Slowly, and as calmly as possible, I place each teapot and White Product on the shelves. Nothing happened. Not even a creak. The boards and wall and brackets worked magically.
And now, I get to enjoy this view when I walk into our bright, happy kitchen:
Ultimately, there were severals yells, a few mutters, a couple we-can't-repeat those, and of course, a big huge prayer when the White Products* were placed on the shelves.
We are new at this DYI stuff - did I mention that? So, our shelves are far from perfect and our pictures are even further. But we are trying to figure DYI out one day at a time.
* I, Emily Brinkley, am a white-aholic. I love white things. White plates, white teapots, white animals, white lamps, white bowls, white flowers, white trim... And pretty much anything else you can thing of. I love color, don't get me wrong, but white is just so clean and crisp. Hmm... That reminds me, I need to go whitewash Kayna's dresser. And Lamp.
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