shelves | Sew Sassy Creations

I’m almost complete with my 1 room, 30 days bathroom challenge and I can’t believe the transformation. Today I completed the shelves and couldn’t wait to post about it. I found several posts on Pinterest about DIY shelving, and thought- what the hell!

I bought a board from Lowes (10″ deep x8′ long) for less than $8. I also bought stain, brackets to hang it on, and my favorite antique bronze spraypaint because the brackets were silver. (Also on my cart was my shower rod).

Over the weekend my husband cut the board to length for me. I decided to make my three shelves 22″, which gave me a slightly longer board left over that I hung in my laundry room for more storage there.

Yesterday I got to work staining and spray painting. I don’t think I’ve ever stained anything before, but it was pretty easy and I only needed one coat.

I let everything dry overnight and got to work hanging them today. I first used the long level to mark a line on one side of the toilet and used that as a guide for one side of brackets. I used drywall anchors rated for 75 pounds, so I feel confident that these shelves are secure.

Hanging the left side was the tricky part. I needed to make sure the brackets were level horizontally and vertically. An extra pair or hands would have been helpful, but I was able to make it work using the level.

Next up was the fun part. I made sure the shelves lined up and were centered on the brackets, then secured them with a screw from underneath. I am in love with how this turned out. All together, I spent around $45 (3 sets of brackets at $7 each, $8 for the board, $7 for stain, and $6 for spray paint, plus screws).

Lucky me, baskets and home decor was 50% off at Hobby Lobby this week. I have toilet paper in the red bucket and wash clothes in the basket on the middle shelf. The picture frame and anchor artwork are also from Hobby Lobby, and the sailboat is from Target. Next up for my bathroom makeover is towels, but I’m going to take the next couple days and catch up on some sewing.

Sew Sassy Creations operates out of our dining room. This is for a couple of reasons, mainly so that I can work some during the day while still being a responsible mom. The problem- our entryway opens up into our dining room, so anybody who comes to our house walks through my “office.” The way our house is set up, blocking the space off with doors isn’t an option, plus that defeats the purpose of being the responsible mom. We discussed getting rid of the existing furniture and organizing the space better, but we would one day (sooner rather than later) like to sell our house, and so we will need to be able to quickly convert the space back to a traditional dining room.

Side note- why do homes have formal dining rooms? Personally, I think having a formal dining room is such a waste of space. Our family has 3 people, yet we have 2 tables with 6 chairs at each. That makes no sense to me and in our next home I want 1 space where I can have a farmhouse table with chairs on one side and a bench on the other…

Ok, back to this project. The table needs to stay and the room needs to still look like a dining room. I found shelves that I really liked at Ikea. They would work for organizing my stuff, but easily would fit the decor of a traditional formal dining room. On a whim, I listed our existing china buffet for sale and it sold within an hour. Game on! I cleaned out the kitchen cabinet above our refrigerator and moved my great grandmother’s china (that in 9 years of marriage we’ve used once) into that now empty cabinet. That happened on Monday, I went to Ikea on a Wednesday, and by the weekend I was sitting pretty in my new space.

I am horrible with “before” pics, but I have one that kinda shows what the room looked like before. What you really can’t see in that picture are the baskets that lined the walls of the room and all of the crap I had stored elsewhere in our house. What I love about the new shelves is the cabinets below- great for hiding things, and easily lockable, preventing my toddler from reaching havoc. The cabinets are deeper than the shelves above, providing me a small workspace for trimming fabric or preparing shipments. The baskets house my fabric stashes for embroidery and smaller projects. I have all of my shipping supplies in another basket. The singer sewing desk was my husband’s great-great-grandmother’s. It was given to me by his grandmother last year. I love that I’m able to display the desk and use it as a functional workspace for my embroidery machine. My favorite new piece is the lime green rolling chair. I will sound incredibly lazy, but I don’t’ even care- I LOVE being able to sit in the chair and kick myself from the embroidery machine, over to the sewing machine, and then to the serger. Plus it just looks super cool.

In the last picture you’ll see my embroidery thread rack- another thing I’ve dreamed about for a long time, and beside that you will see one of my all time favorite things. Last summer, my friend Susan took pictures of Zac. The framed picture was taken at the very end of our photo session and I didn’t even realize she had taken it until I got the finished pictures from her. I love this picture and will cherish it always. PS, the capes are available for order in the shop.