Books on the Wall: N's Nursery Bookshelves

A little over 16 months later, N's bedroom is nearly complete. While we had a very put-together room before her birth, it was very gender neutral and we (okay, I) had plans to personalize it a bit more once we found out who would be joining our family. But as it turns out, having a newborn/ baby/ boddler is a bit all-encompassing, so I've done little things in little bits over the months and am just now getting done.

One of the advantages I have had in my procrastination has been the ability to really assess N's needs as they are and not as I imagined they would be, which has been a little amazing since I don't think any parent can predict what his or her child is going to end up needing or liking.

For example, N had very little interest in books until she was almost ten months old. So we had a basket that held a select few in the nursery but never needed more space at that point. Even if she had loved books, I thought that my basket plan made good sense in general for a nursery. Nurseries are for babies after all, and for sleeping. Fast forward a few months and not only does she like reading LOTS of books, but she likes to pick them out, and she also loves reading in the glider and playing in her room. And floor space is at a premium in her petite nursery.

So I Pinterested (is that a word yet?) and internet searched. I adored the many variations on Ikea spice racks at book shelves. After all, they're super-inexpensive and take up no floor space at all.

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I saw great fabric sling bookshelves as well. I loved the idea of using pretty fabric for something useful, but I disliked that this meant covering a good portion of N's book fronts and also it would be kind of busy in her already eclectic space.

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Of course there were also many many awesome iterations of refreshed older or thrifted bookshelves. Even some pretty tiny ones. But I definitely thought that some kind of hanging version would be best for our square footage. And sort of made up my mind to head over to Ikea for a few spice racks. What I didn't like about that option was the fact that dude, it's spice racks. So they are really pretty slim. Although the width looks like it accommodates two books side-by-side, you couldn't put them in very deep-- maybe three skinny ones. But whatever. The price was right.

Until a trip to Michaels, where I discovered that among the other unfinished wooden goodies that they carry, they sell CD crates (why, I'm not sure) for $4.99 a pop. So I was pretty thrilled to buy three of them at 40 percent off each as I figured out just how many I wanted.

But I wasn't digging the unfinished wood, so I hauled them outside for a little makeover, and then added four letters in the same hue to one. Forgive the shoddy pictures, please.

I then employed my feminine wiles to get the Mister to get them up on the wall-- exactly in line with the lower shelf and beginning just above the floor molding and be really careful to keep them level, please-- as soon as it was feasible what with the paint and glue that needed to dry and set. No, he doesn't work naked. I thought about cropping him further out of this picture but it looks too funny not to keep it.  And that isn't a hair in this very discolored photo either, but a piece of wire he used to keep things in line. Also you'll notice the very scientific tool used to gauge height: Llama Llama Red Pajama. 

But all's well that ends well! Especially after I figured out that this project came in at a cost of less than $12 total for every.single.thing that went into them save the books and lovies.

Not only is Mama happy, but so is Miss N who keeps finding "new" books and toys to play with at every turn. Even more of a happy accident was the fact that in the end, two of the shelves are very accessible and N-friendly, but the top one is out of her reach. This means that we can store some of her more special-- and/ or obnoxious-- books safely. With the extra width that the CD racks offer (and some cardboard on the bottom to bridge the gaps), each crate holds between 10 and 13 books at the moment-- and they are definitely not full. Also for the time being I added a few stuffed friends to them which took up otherwise useful space that could have meant more books in her room. 

And with this, the nursery-- well, toddler room-- is nearly done! Maybe someday I'll get around to sharing all of the special details that have gone into it. But that would also probably mean that I have to actually take pictures of the porch post-revamp and finish sharing about our beach trip, too. So, "maybe someday."

XO,