We love rooms that utilize their space but it seems like when people want a room to look as big as possible they push all the furniture against the wall. These aren’t the types of rooms that we love. Sometimes in order to create space you have to take some away.
The dilemma started with our end tables. Each of the end tables held a lamp. We liked the lamps but hated how much space they occupied on our tables. During one of our trips to IKEA we noticed a sofa that had a shelf positioned behind it in one of the model rooms. We liked the idea but upon further inspection we noticed that the shelf was too narrow and merely particle board. We knew that a quick trip to Lowe’s could provide us with the materials that we needed to build our own.
After evaluating the ready-made shelving at Lowe’s (also particle board and also too small for our couch) we headed over to the lumber department and picked out a nice sturdy board.
When we got the board home we sanded it to remove any rough edges and then applied two coats of brown paint, followed by a gloss finish.
Peter and I were terrified of mounting the board in the drywall so we were insistent upon finding studs. There are a million ways to do this but I couldn’t help but feeling like I was picking out a melon in the grocery store–aimlessly knocking without really being able to tell a difference in one fruit (or studded area) from another. After a long while and a few minor freakouts (Peter was getting impatient and wanted to destroy the wall looking for a stud) we mounted our shelf.
Here is the final product:
We actually managed to refrain from buying anything to decorate it. The lamps are the same ones mentioned earlier in the post. What’s great is that now they give off an amazing light. When they sat on our end tables they only lit the floor but now we can read (or blog) with a sufficient amount of light!
The framed picture is a photo of Peter and me at Navy Pier in Chicago. The candles were a hand-me-down from my brother. (Can you believe he was going to throw them away?) And finally, the statuette is a beautiful little hand-carved engagement gift from my fabulous mother. Here is a close-up. I should’ve turned on the lamp when I was taking the picture but for some reason, I didn’t.
We love how the whole set-up frames our couch. What do you think? Does anyone else have a couch shelf?
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One Comments to “Building a Shelf”
[...] it a beautiful mirror? The lighting from our new shelf bounces around in the mirror to give the room [...]