Rain Gutter Book Shelves: A solution

I love to read. So does my oldest boy. I love it.

He does however have a tendency to act like his 4 year old self from time to time at the most inopportune moments. On the one hand he loves to read and look at books, on the other he will rip all 35 covers of our Bernstein Bear books because, "I wanted to", or "I thought they would look better this way."

Let's just say I've lost it a few times. So I'm constantly coming up with new ideas for homes for our kids books. One after another after another. Nothing seemed to be working. Don't get me wrong I don't have terror children and we don't belong on Super Nanny {love that show} but about 2-3 times per week my boys give into there Mr.Hyde dark side and chaos always ensues. It's the life of a mama with little boys, or so I tell myself.

Finally after hunting around the blogosphere I found this great little DIY project called rain gutter book shelves. Now, the point of these shelves are to mainly let kids see the front of the book and not just the spine and give them easy access to them. In my case I use them to keep the books around BUT OUT OF REACH!! {hehe}

First we screw in the brackets...

Then we slide in the gutter...

Can't forget to measure...

Excuse my lack of end caps...

Voila'

These of course aren't all the kids books. We also set up a sort of library system at home. If they want a new book and their is no room on the bookshelf they have to "return one" for a new one. So far it's worked great.

S0, how do you get these really awesome shelves in your home? Simple take a quick trip to your local hardware store and pick up a very few things. Most of them you'll have a round the house.

Supplies:

-Vinyl rain gutters {I got mine from Home Depot. 10 feet for $5.25}
-Brackets for the rain gutters
-End caps for the rain gutters {I skipped out on these at the moment. They were the most expensive and since they were just for looks I'll get them another day}
-Wood screws {make sure they fit the size of your brackets}
-Hack saw
-Drill
-Level
-Marking pencil/sharpie
-Stud finder

Now in 10 simple steps you can to can have these great shelves in your home.

1. Decide the length that you want your shelf to be

2. Cut the rain gutter with the hack saw

3. Decide where you want to put the shelves and find and mark the studs {Remember studs are usually 16'' apart}

4. Determine the height that you want the top of the shelf to be and mark that point on one of the studs that will be close to the end of the other shelf

5.Level the stud marks

6. Using the wood screw and the drill, screw a bracket into the point that you just marked

7. Slide the gutter into the mounted brackets

8. Glue on the end caps

9. Repeat if needed

10.Enjoy

I hope that this project can serve for a happy solution to whatever you need as it does in our home. We'll see ya next time on Ask this Old House.... {KIDDING}

xO-Cat