One of my favorite perks of our new house is that it’s a three bedroom setup. That means that Todd and I both get a “bonus” room (apart from our bedroom) to make into whatever we want. His room is a music room (no surprise there) and I finally get to put together an art space where I can create, craft, and store all my decorating purchases and art supplies. Although my art room has a fantastic closet with lots of room, I wanted to keep my most used items out where I could easily access them at a moment’s notice. There’s always an excuse not to do something creative (you’re tired, feeling uninspired, or there’s a Law and Order SUV marathon on), but I didn’t want inaccessibility of supplies to be one of those reasons. Thus, I decided that I wanted several shelves on which to perch those supplies.

We ended up with an extra bookcase in the move (one just didn’t fit where I thought it would when I bought it), so I took the shelves off of the old one and set about turning them into free-standing shelves.

I lightly sanded each side of the shelves with a moderate grit sandpaper, wiped the dust off with a damp rag, and spray painted 2-3 coats of Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze spray paint (leaving adequate dry time in between each coat).

I bought white shelf brackets at Lowe’s and attached the brackets to the wall with wall anchors to give the shelves more stability in holding the weight. We attached the brackets to the wall first and then placed the shelf on top of the brackets, marking where the final set of screws should go with a marker. Using a drill, we pre-drilled our marked holes, making it much easier to attach the board to the brackets.

A bit of work, but overall, not too bad! It felt great to recycle some of the bookcase material and put it to good use instead of throwing it out, and it saved the me from having to buy more wood for the new shelves. A win all around!