A few months ago, I had the crazy idea to build shelves in our living room. Four simple, white shelves on each side of the fireplace. I was excited and I was nervous. I had never built anything that didn’t come with instructions. Not even the catapult required to pass Mr. Storrick’s high school Physics class. (Shout out to you, Mike Myers.) But, we were determined to make our house feel more like a home, and we thought shelves would be just the thing.
I scrounged up a measuring tape only to discover that our fireplace is 10″ off center. So, with two different measurements and a ton of ideas in mind, we headed off to Busy Beaver.
Two months, one quart of frozen paint, one shipment of wooden brackets from Ikea, one paint-stained pair of Under Armour pants, one brand new drill, and six packs of whatever kind of screw we needed to stick into our drywall-covered-brick walls later, we were ready to begin actually hanging the shelves.
This is the part where I completely passed the baton. It took forever to get four shelves hung perfectly, which I now attribute to the fact that not only is our fireplace not centered in our living room, but the walls themselves are crooked. Pittsburgh homes. I tell ya. Gotta love ’em.
Fortunately, I know a few handy people, and my shelf dreams came true. (Disclaimer: Half of my dreams come true. Somebody managed to score tickets to last night’s playoff game, so our shelf hanging timeframe was minimized. We’ll get the other half done… eventually.) Check out the fruits of our labor… and Lauren Graham’s “Those shelves look amazing!” face!
Even Buxton is happy with the upgrades!
Tiny Tales 
This is awesome.
They look great! And your cat is adorable!