OH Design Co.

Every since pinning some inspiration pictures like the ones you see below,  I knew I wanted to add book ledges somewhere in the playroom.  One, it's easy for a child to see their books.  And two, I wanted to encourage reading and add more functionality to the space.

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As I mentioned yesterday, I found this tutorial by Kristine over at The Painted Hive, and I just tweaked it a bit.  Since the playroom is fairly narrow at less than 10 feet wide, the wall that they ended up on needed slim storage.  I have tried putting a bookcase on it, but it blocked the natural light and the view out of the bay window.

I started by going to buy wood.  I knew that I wanted my shelves to be a little deeper than the ones in the tutorial, plus mine were going on an open wall, so I had the space for it.  I wanted them deep enough to allow books to lean against the wall, but shallow enough that I could screw through the depth of the wood, and into the wall, thus having floating shelves.   I chose 1x3's for my actual ledge. 

I also needed a thin piece of wood to form the lip of the shelf (as seen in the picture above) and hold the books on the shelf.  I couldn't find trim that matched the dimensions in the tutorial.  So I was searching the shelves and saw a trim called 'base cap molding' next to the baseboard molding.  It was only 1 1/8" in height, which was perfect to create a lip for the shelves, and it came in solid pine.  It had the profile of crown moulding but was flat on the back like 1x2.  And that's when I had an epiphany!  Instead of just going across the face of the shelf, as seen above, I could wrap the trim around all three sides to the wall!  (I'm probably the only one who got excited about that, but hey!)  I nearly skipped my way out the store.

I decided to make my four shelves 42" long each.  So I needed:

2ct 8' 1x3's mine are pine (which are actually 2 1/2 wide),   $7ea x 2 = $14

3ct 8' lengths of the base cap moulding, also solid pine   $7ea x 3 = $21

8ct" 3 3/4" wood screws            $  4

3/16" drill bit to predrill holes     $  3

1/2" countersink bit  (on hand)      $  0

                                                                 
Total Project Cost:  $42

I also had stain and polyurethane on hand from previous projects.  Of course, it could be a little more or less, depending on what you have on hand.  I should also say that the base cap molding comes in 10' lengths, so if I were to repeat this project, I would just buy two of those instead.

Several things to do before starting:

1.) I marked in advance, using a stud finder, the position of my studs so that I could screw directly into them to mount the shelves.  This meant that I didn't need anchors.  But the screws were going thru the 1x3's, plus at least 1/2" of drywall, plus another 1/2" to 3/4" depth into the actual stud.  That's at least 3 1/2", so I needed to countersink the screws to secure the shelves to the studs.

2.) After marking the stud location, I decided how far up the wall I wanted to start the shelves, and also settled on a 15" distance between each shelf.   Then marked a horizontal line, with stud locations noted, to show where to mount each shelf.   Then, to make sure each ledge was evenly spaced from the wall edge, I also made a mark 6" from the wall edge.

3.) I also pre-stained all of my wood and just stained the cut edges as I went along.  I sealed the entire shelf at the end, with Wipe-On Polyurethane.  I used the same stain and poly as I used on the chalkboard project. 

Next I assembled my tools, as seen below, plus a miter saw and a nail gun.

I began by pre-drilling into the stud.  Next, I cut the 1x3 down to 42" using the miter saw.  Using my pre-marked line that was 6" in from the wall edge,  I held the 1x3 ledge up to it, and marked the stud location on it.  Using the stud location, I drilled holes in the 1x3 for the screws, then drilled a countersink hole about 1/2" deep.  After the holes were drilled and countersunk, I held the 1x3 ledge up to the wall, then screwed through it, into the two studs.