Complete with Custom Dog Kennel…
Pottery Barn Studio Shelf
When we first moved into our house it felt a little empty for the first few months. We went from a two bedroom (1000 sq. ft) apartment to almost 3x that, so you can imagine we didn’t have nearly enough furniture and decor to fill it.
We have enjoyed the process of decorating and settling in over the years. One room that had always been a challenge was our family room. Because of its long, awkward shape, we didn’t know how to make it feel pulled together.
After doing some research, I had decided I wanted leaning bookcases to add some storage and fill in space on the one long wall, that previously was home to a few random DVD shelves and the girls’ dog kennel. I had picked out some from Pottery Barn’s Studio collection, and was about to order, when we realized the dimensions were not quite right for the space we were trying to fill.
My husband looked at the design and decided we should just build our own; that way they would fit our space perfectly. He looked up design ideas and found ones for the exact shelves I wanted. You can find them here. Love Ana White’s site!
We measured our space and decided on the number of units we wanted; five total of varying widths. We followed her plans exactly, with the exception of the width of the bookcases.
Here are some photos of the process…
we made all five at the same time, so we were always on the same stage whether sanding, constructing, priming, etc.
Once they were assembled, we primed, and painted two coats of black, sanding between each coat. As you’ll see in our house, I tend to favor darker furniture. You may have noticed in my kitchen post that our cabinets are also black. Even though we decided to go with black for the paint, these shelves look great in white as well!
Here are some great examples of white leaning bookcases:
The Container Store (Linea Bookcase)
Overstock.com (Five tier Leaning Ladder Shelf)
In addition to storage and added display area, we needed that space to function as the girls’ kennel area as well. We used to have two standard wire kennels side by side for them.
My clever husband designed and built a custom kennel that blends seamlessly in with the leaning bookcases.
He dis-assembled their old wire kennels and used their parts for the front.
It was primed and painted the same as the shelves.
Here’s a pic of them checking out their new digs. Based on their expressions I think they like it…but are also a bit confused.
Here is a picture of some of the finished bookcases…
It was a fun project and looking back it was actually better that we made our own. It not only saved quite a lot of money, since each PB unit was $350+ and we needed five plus a dog kennel, but also allowed us to customize the dimensions and layout.
Cost estimate for 5 bookcases and kennel:
2-sheets of sanded select board pine plywood (~$45 each)
10-1×4″ pine boards (~$7 each)
12-1×3″ pine boards (~$6 each)
1 quart of semi gloss paint (~$15)
1 quart of primer (~$10)
Total: ~$257 (less than 1 unit from PB)
Check back next week to see the whole family room; complete with more detailed looks at the five leaning bookcases, custom dog kennel and current decor (it’s always changing).
Hope everyone has a great weekend! Thanks for reading:)
