Easy Peasy DIY L Shelves

This post is in honor of my husband and the great work hes' done to showcase my photos in our current house. Not an easy task, according to him. In fact, I often hear him say, " It's not easy being me." lol


Many of my FB friends know that my profile  picture is one of my favorite cartoons, Snoopy. I think I'm going to  have to start using the one below as an ode to my husband Rich for the carpentry work he does to make me happy. What do you think?

As you can see, the hallway of our house of four years is pretty bare. I was able selvedge my kids caricatures after the flood and they are on the opposite wall, but the wall you see is pretty lonely.

His latest project is that of these great shelves I found at Shanty to Chic.  Seriously, these shelves cost just $9.87 plus the cost of finish screws. We bought 2  2x4x8 pieces of primed MDF board and 1 2 x 2 x 8. He made one 4',one 3' and one 1' shelf.  Pretty thrifty huh? 

A month before Irene , four years ago, with the help of my sister I had just finished a gallery wall of about 20 photos of my children.  We had just finished painting the living room and installing a new wood floor. I decided a gallery wall would be perfect above the sofa. It was a painstakingly slow process but it looked great. The only regret I have is that I didn't take any pictures. The other problem I know realize is there was so many nail  holes in that wall. 

In our  current home, I didn't want to have all the nail holes.  I saw the shelves on Pinterest and decided this is the way to go. After nagging and nagging (you know how it goes ladies) we finally went to Home Depot, picked up the boards and he got busy. 

 I had only a few photos I was able to salvage  from the flood and here they are. I love how the shelves allow you to layer photos and memorabilia.

With the extra 1 foot of shelving, Rich build a charging shelve for my iPhone, camera, and iPad. I love it.

I (he) will be building more for a wall in our dining area.  Stay tuned for the outcome of that project with an addition to the wall space in both the dining area and hallway. 

Lessons Learned: 

1. We chose a primed MDF board for this project. For the first go around it was OK. But for the next, we will go with a pine board. The MDF shows too many imperfections. 

2. Our hallway is narrow. The original plans called for the base of the shelves to be 1x4. Rich cut them down to 1x3. They didn't stick out as far in the hallway. 

3. Looks like I need more length on my charging station shelf. 

Do any of you have experience with building these shelves?  I'd love to hear about your experience. 

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