You guys, we bought our house exactly one year ago, the day after we got back from our honeymoon. And as some of you know, we spent the first month working our booties off trying to get our house in livable shape in order to list it on Airbnb. Don't get me wrong, while our house was decorated in a more minimalistic fashion, I think we still did a pretty good job creating a cozy space for this past year.
But things can always be better, right? It's been bothering me for months that our giant living room wall had zero decorations/pictures/art on it. I've been agonizing over what to do to make it better (some of my friends can attest to this😂) and I went back and forth many, many times of "we HAVE to do something for this wall" to "it's not the end of the world, and we really don't need to spend the money."
On Saturday, I decided something had to be done. So I drew up some quick sketches of what different options could look like on our wall and showed my husband. My favorite, of course, was a long, industrial-ish wall shelf, and he agreed! We were totally inspired by my friend Amy and her beautiful living room shelf! We woke up Sunday morning and headed off to Home Depot to get the materials we needed. As a side note, this was the first time in over a month that I had been into a store. Hello 'Rona.
We found the shelf brackets and went with a common whiteboard because we thought the color would look best in our house. Sadly, when we got it home, we realized how warped the board was and how much it would drive us crazy. So back to the store we went, and we ended up with a little bit more expensive but perfectly flat board made of poplar. It's so pretty, y'all.
The deal with buying materials for a shelf meant that I could only decorate it with things we already owned, so I had to get creative. As much as I wanted to go buy all the perfect frames and photos and pretty decor, it wasn't in the cards. And honestly, we as a culture buy too much stuff anyway when we already have lots of things living around our home! So I stole things from other rooms in the house and dug through storage bins to find the best items to make our shelf cozy and warm.
I'm sure I'll rearrange it a thousand times in the future, but for now, I am so happy with how it turned out and am LOVING the life and character that's been added to our home.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED
1 Piece of Lumber - a Poplar Board worked best for us. It was nice and flat, no warping. Our shelf is 8"W x 10'L
Steel Shelf Brackets - we used the 8" bracket
Various tools - you'll want a drill, hammer, screws, wall anchors, a measuring tape, and a level
All the fun things to decorate your beautiful new shelf.😍
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