DIY: Gutter Bookshelves

I saw the most amazing idea on Raising Olives Blog and wanted to do the same thing in our baby's room. I think books, reading, learning and all things education related start at the beginning so I've made sure this is already a focus for our little boy. For my showers I asked that in lieu of a card the guests bring a book and to make it special they should write something to our baby inside the cover. :) It was a great success and I'm so thankful for the wonderful collection we have to share with our boy! Since we have a little library, storage for these books is key. I want them to be accessible for me when I'm rocking him to sleep in the first years and then accessible for him when he wants to read himself. Soooo... these gutter bookshelves are perfect! Plus I love DIYs. :D

The plan for the shelves was to hang them inside the existing wood trim boxes on the wall next to the rocker. There are three boxes and they are a little over 2' wide by 3.5' tall. This means we can fit three 2' shelves in each box... that's nine shelves (I get an A+ in math for today :)).

Here's the supply list:

- Vinyl gutters which generally come in 10' pieces (only get aluminum if you have a cut wheel and/or a saw with a carbide teeth blade and even then safety is a big factor so be sure to have all the right protective gear)

- End caps which come in right and left

- Outdoor adhesive

- Caulk - Clear drying caulk

- Screws with anchors OR you can use brackets (purchased at the hardware store as well)

And that's it!

We picked up materials at a chain hardware store. We grabbed two pieces of 10' gutters which will give us five shelves each so we'll have one extra in case we need it. I let my husband cut the gutters on his table saw (or maybe he wouldn't let me cut them... he always thinks I will lose a finger or something haha) and I cleaned them up.

One thing I recommend, because I have pets that shed, is to rub the shelves with dryer sheets. I use dryer sheets on my baseboards too and it helps to keep the hair and dirt off of them! Once they are clean you can glue the end caps to each shelf. My husband glued and I caulked.
 

Once they were dry (we let them dry over night but it doesn't take long... a few hours) we hung them. Use a level... I never hang anything without a level and try to hit studs if you can just to ensure they won't fall when our little boy yanks on them to stand up :)

 
For less than $100 we created a "library" in our nursery! Note: this is really inexpensive if you have fewer longer shelves (we had to work around the trim so we had more shelves) because the end caps are the expensive part!

How do you display your books? Any other creative ideas out there? I want to hear about them!

-> Kassy <-