The Library

I love to read... and my son loves to read...it's only fitting that his daughter should love to read as well. And I love buying books... it's my thing... I give books for gifts... I can't count how many books I've gifted over the years. When my son was very little I started him in a couple book clubs... and I still have every one of them. Now they are Marlee's! So I wanted to make her a place to read them.
So here it goes...

I had some old Ikea ottomans that I had picked up at work... for a while they sat in Marlee's room with no purpose... then they acted as a safety net in case she rolled too far from her bed... but really no purpose, because she never did.. so I decided I would repurpose them.. 

And her wasted closet space

So I took down the shelf, and the closet rod hardware and patched the wall

Then I painted the wall ultra bright white and lightened up her wall color and added the band of pink .

Now here's the scoop on the bench... or as Marlee calls it .. her "couch".

I had a bunch of scrap boards from Marlee's kitchen set and various other projects so I decided instead of buying a solid piece of wood I would Kreg them together and that's exactly what I did

Six boards later and I have the perfect sized bench.

I bought some foam pillow forms from Walmart and they were the perfect size!

Trial run in the closet to see how it fits... looks good to me!



So now I upholstered the bench seat...with $20 worth of pillow forms and  with fabric I already had... just made it in some spots.. nice snug covering..

Then I attached the dismantled ottomans to the bench top.

Strategically stapled and pleated the fabric across the base

 

And gained all this storage!!

Next came the book ledges.... I had planned to make two for each side wall in the closet... that's where I started ...

So I started making the cuts... lots of cuts...

 

And drilling the holes

and painting...and sanding and painting....

and screwing....

and I have shelves...

I won't bore you with the details of hanging the shelves... but now my little Marlee has a library....

and more books than I can display... so right after the reveal it was time for more shelves!

I cut all my wood again...

Had a little accident with the stop collar slipping on my bit... oops!!!

All the other steps later... we have more book shelves...

With left over wood, I made shelves for displaying her girls....

and she has told me more than once....

I don't like them there Grammy....

oh well !!! 

 lol... she'll grow into it...

I have a feeling I'll be making more shelves soon.... or cancelling her book club membership!!!

 

Here's where you can find how to make these shelves too... Thanks Ana!!

 

http://ana-white.com/2010/10/plans/ten-dollar-ledges