Getting My Mind into the Gutter, 19 August 2013

Today, the two most unusual things I did were attending a free cardio workout at--wait for it--the public library, and installing rain gutters inside my house.

Being that I'm new to Pinterest, before last week I'd never heard of using rain gutters as bookshelves.  (What, did you think my ceilings leaked or something?)  Apparently, quite a number of people--including at least four of my friends (who should invite me over to their homes more often so that I can observe their creative organization) and my grandpa, of all people--have installed these cool shelves.  But how many people do you know of who get sweaty at their local library?

Maybe there's a Pinterest board for county libraries around the nation who offer fitness classes, but I haven't spent time looking for it.  At any rate, I never expected to encounter an activity that involved blaring music, sweaty people, and a complete lack of reading at our local library.  Truthfully, I don't think many of the library patrons expected it either.  Have you ever browsed audio books or walked out library doors while beet-red and soaked with sweat?

Maybe don't answer that.  Suffice it to say, I got quite a few glances from fellow library-goers who didn't seem to have read the class notice on the front doors.  There were a couple young guys sitting at a table near the stacks I was looking at afterward, and given that they didn't converse with each other exclusively in English, I can only wonder what they might have been saying.  Or maybe my mind's in the gutter.

Speaking of gutters, back to the other unusual thing about my day.  First, a snapshot of how my kids' bedroom looks most of the time.

See those books all over the floor?  And see that cabinet on the left?  Well, the books are supposed to go in that cabinet.  But do they?  Clearly not.  It takes some amount of skill to neatly put books away spine-first, and that is a skill my children do not possess.

So last week I started a hunt for a solution.  My thought was to have shelves in which the books could face forward, making it a snap to put them away and making it easier to find specific stories, to boot.  My first thought was to buy the kids something like this:

But Jay didn't think this was the best $200 use of their bedroom floor space, so I next dove into the world of Pinterest.  I found some beautiful, relatively-simple, floating wood bookshelves that had straightforward instructions.  My dad--a highly-accomplished woodcrafter--looked at the design, gave me some tips for improvement, explained what "counter-sinking" is, suggested what wood I use, and promised to loan me his hand-held electric sander.  

Paint or stain?  This was the last detail to decide and I posited the question to my wealth of Facebook friends.  "Vinyl rain gutters," was the most common answer.  Huh?

Back to Pinterest!  There was no lack of pins on the topic, so after sifting through photos and how-tos, I concluded that the gutters were, in fact, the best option for us.  (Sorry to disappoint you, Dad.  But rain gutters don't need sanding, painting, C-clamps, or counter-sinking, so...yeah.)

After four trips to hardware stores, $60 of materials, five wrongly-drilled holes, more beeps from a stud-finder than I care to remember, a few tense moments between wife/husband and parent/children, and a whole lot of elbow grease, this is what we accomplished!

View from the bedroom door

View toward the bedroom door

Not pictured here are the two additional shelves we put up by the boys' bunkbed; each kid got a 5-foot shelf above his mattress.  If I had waited to post about this until another day, I could have photographed those shelves too, but by the time I was taking pictures of the finished project tonight, the boys were sprawled on their beds in pajamas.  They were looking at books!

In the event you feel inspired to do something like this in your house, here's what we did.  (These instructions are based on using on-top brackets; I wanted to use underneath ones, but the gutter brand I chose didn't have them.)  Someone from Pinterest or a legit home-decorating blog would have step-by-step photos of this process, but I'll throw in some pics of materials and several handy tips for you.

• For six 5-foot shelves, I bought three 10-foot lengths of vinyl gutters at our local home improvement store.
• Tip: Try and sweet-talk a store associate into sawing the lengths in half for you.

Pretty, right?

• I also bought left- and right-endcap pairs for each shelf, plus two brackets per shelf.
• Tip: Before you sweet-talk the store associate into sawing the gutters and before you leave the store with a bag of brackets, make sure the brackets you're buying match the shape of the gutters.  Who knew there isn't a vinyl rain gutter standard?



Don't forget to get left and right endcaps.



I don't know why they picture this bracket on its side.

• Decide on the height of the lowest shelf and mark the wall studs nearest each end of where the gutter will go.

• Tip: Try to keep your children's beepy use of the stud-finder to a minimum.
• Slide the brackets onto the gutter (no endcaps yet, assuming they'll snap on easily-enough post-gutter installation), positioning them at the studs you've chosen.  Set a level inside the trough and mark the brackets' screw holes on the wall with a pencil.
• Tip: Having a second adult to help with holding one end of the gutter while you're leveling would be helpful, but if no other adults are available, a 6-year old does a fairly good job.
• Put the gutter down and drill a smallish hole into the studs at the places you've marked.
• Tip: If you aren't sure which size drill bit to use, ask a second, helpful adult.
• Hold the gutter back up, matching the brackets' holes to the ones you've just drilled, call your 6-year old back over to help hold up one end, and screw one bracket into the wall.
• Tip: If you aren't strong enough to get the screw all the way in, that's okay; just get it in as far as you can and wait for a stronger, second adult to get home from work.
• Screw the second bracket into the other stud.
• Put on the endcaps (6-year olds are good at that).
• Mark another stud or two between the two brackets you installed.
• Slide the gutter into its final left-right position (if it shifted during bracket screw-in).
• Drill a hole and then add a screw directly through the back wall of the gutter into a stud you marked.
• Tip: Because of stud spacing and the length of our gutters, we had a bracket at one end, a bracket about 6 inches in from the other end, and one screw in a stud between.  After being filled with books, it has held up to the weight just fine--at least for the three hours it's been on the wall.
• Grab your tallest book and figure out how much space you want between the higher shelves (accounting for room to pull the book in and out).
• Repeat!

If you are of Pinterest ilk, have the space, or just feel more creative than I did, you could buy connecting gutter pieces and wrap the shelves around corners, which looks pretty cool (but watch out; it's all the little pieces that add up the $$).

And there you have the story of the two most unusual aspects of my day.  I can't vouch for how my muscles are going to feel when I wake up tomorrow, but I sure look forward to walking into the kids' bedroom...without stepping on a single book.