The Educated Dog Lady's Addiction: Books

The Educated Dog Lady's Addiction: Books

What to Do with That Awkwardly Large Box-Like Hallway

I Know! Feed my book addiction.

We all know what I am talking about....the stacks that pile up slowly.  They start on the coffee table....and then migrate to the bathroom because of course you need your fix there.  The kitchen table starts having more books than plates present. Then the corners start building mini skyscrapers of tomes.  Eventually you actually start treating the piles of books like furniture themselves, fashioning make shift tables and desks out of them.

I do not have a large house- it's just a small, two bedroom cottage.  But it is the perfect size for Sammy the Dog Trainer.  And it's my first house I have ever owned, so of course I have to tinker with everything, paint it all different colors, and generally make it my own.  Because I own it.  And you have to do that if you own a house for the first time.  It's a rule....or something.  Dogs are much less industrious.  They just pee on something and then the ownership is established.  Loads easier than what the single, 30-something woman does when she first owns a house.  Which is become obsessed with projects.

Using the space wisely becomes a priority when you... well collect books the way your dog collects those nasty hitchhiker grass seeds in its fur.  So I took my awkward hallway from this:

Yes that is a cat.  No I do not train cats.

He helps me train puppies to get along with cats though.

That is Tax Right-Off No.1.  No. 2 is probably hiding.

To this:

Here is what you need:

Wood planks

Varnish

Circle saw

L-shaped brackets

Black spray paint

Measuring tape

Hammer drill

Concrete anchors and screws

Marker

I'm not big on how-to's for home projects (mostly because my stuff is winged and cattywampus) but this is the basic rundown on how I did this.

1. Measured the planks to fit where I wanted them to.  Cut them with the circle saw (yeah watch out for women with power tools).  Then I varnished the planks.

2. I took my L brackets and spray painted them black.  It is a lot cheaper to do it this way than to buy fancy restoration industrial look brackets.  I let them dry over night.

3. My walls are concrete block, so hanging anything is a pain.  The heavy duty hammer drill is a must for any home owner with these evil walls.  Even my inner walls are concrete blocks.  You have to hand it to people in the 1950s...they took durability seriously... and also large missiles seriously...so there's that.

4. I had to measure from the ceiling and mark the bracket holes where I wanted each bracket.  I did not use any special bracket science to figure out how many brackets I needed per foot of shelf.  I am sure there are other blogs out there that will tell you that if you have to know.  I just put enough so that it looked sturdy.  Yay logic!  (if yours falls out of the wall, then you are not so good at logic).  Hammer in the anchors then screw the brackets onto the anchors.

5.  Put the cut planks on the brackets and screw down.  Hopefully when you measured your planks you took into account the corner space....yeah that didn't happen the first time around for me.  Yay winging things.  I might also not be so good at logic all the time.

6. Put all your crazy amounts of books and knickknack thingies on the shelves.  Yell at your cat for jumping on the shelves.  Wonder why you bother yelling at your cat because the cat does not care. Pet your dog, because your dog cares even if he has no idea what he is caring about.

7. Stand back.  Admire your handy work.  Then order more books.  See Our Fave Dog Books Here

OK, so should you do home projects the exact same way I do?  Probably not.  All the pictures in my house are crooked from the good ole eyeball-it method.  Will it stop me from writing blog posts about it?  Noooooope.  Hopefully you gain some good ideas from my occasional cute projects posts.  And you go about doing your own in a less chaotic way than I do. 

Or embrace the chaos.  And buy more books. I am such an enabler.

Cheers,

Sammy the Dog Trainer

P.S. If you saw off your foot or any other appendage while attempting to mimic these projects, I am not liable.  And sorry.  Cause ouch.