almost done

We've almost finished one of our goals! Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, sturdy bookshelves for under $200! At night, while the girls slumbered away, we've been drilling and sanding and working away on something that for a few days looked like an NRA enthusiasts dream.


Meet the first gunrack. We made the wood brackets ourselves. Don't look too close. The brackets were the hardest portion of our project to figure out. Wood brackets, the size we needed to fit 12" deep, 12' long bookshelves are very very expensive. And metal brackets are just ugly. We almost went with them, but came to our senses.

I never thought I'd say this, but Martha is a great resource. Oh yeah, Martha Stewart. Her people totally know their stuff, and they had a plethora of wood bracket templates to choose from. We didn't really want to reinvent the wheel, and the beauty of these brackets are their simplicity. Two cuts, two brackets. LOVE Simplicity.




Here's the wall covered in gun racks. I almost got James to put his hunting gear on (used once in the past seven years), but then I remembered that he doesn't even have his own gun.




This is sort of what we have right now. It's a littl wonky like you're looking through a fun house mirror at our shelves. James didn't quite fit the pieces together seamlessly when he was taking the picture.

Next up: Prime, Paint, and Book 'em. I'll show you the finished project. Eventually we might build cabinets under the bottom shelves. Until then, we'll just really enjoy our prodigal books.