Home Design Ideas: Wall Display Bookshelves

So, this is wild. I took my son to the library for the very first time a few weeks ago and he loved it. I decided I wanted a really neat place for him to put his books. So, I went to my "drawing board" (powerpoint) and drew up a sketch of what I wanted to make.

Here is my sketch:

So that SAME DAY, a few hours later, on Shanty2Chic's Gorilla Glue party, I saw Traci from Beneath My Heart post this! I couldn't believe how similar the bookshelf that she created was to the one that I had sketched just hours before.

This is why I love the blogging world so much. I had just sketched this out with plans to go to Home Depot that night and buy materials. I saw that she used plaques from Hobby Lobby to do hers, and I thought that was Brilliant! So I altered my boring plans to use scrapwood for the sides and splurged the extra $1.47 for the plaques.

This was a very easy and very inexpensive project that I think turned out really cute.

All you'll need is:

2 1X3's 24 inches long (or however long you want) - $0.50 from Home Depot Scrap section

1 12 inch plaque from Hobby Lobby - $1.47

1 set of wall hangers - $2.29

1 wooden dowel (mine was 7/16") - $0.99

Total Cost: $5.26!!

Step 1. Nail your 2 1X3s in an "L" shape

Step 2.

Cut the bottom off of your plaque so that you have a flat bottom. Then put it up against your "L" to see where you need to cut vertically so that it will be flush.

You should be able to get both sides of the shelf out of one plaque

Step 3

Nail the sides onto the "L"

I used my favorite tool for this:

Nope, not the nail gun. The Tuba Player holding it :-)

Now you should have something that looks like this:

By the way, these pictures are taken in our garage. We've only lived here a few months, and we haven't tackled cleaning this one out yet. The old owner had carpet down, which is terrible, but it works out well for all my painting I do out here.

Step 4.

Cut your wooden Dowel Rod and nail this in place too.

Step 5.

Paint them and screw on your wall hanger:

I also wanted to dress them up a little bit, so I bought some letters, painted them brown and polka-dotted every other letter with my wall color and the other letters I modge-podged with my left over invitation paper.