Shelves

I have been down for the count a bit this last month. I have to go have a surgery, which I did not want to have. It’s not like I am going to die, but it will greatly improve my life. It gets in the way of my projects, and my life in general, but what are you going to do?

I did manage to get myself together enough to get some shelves installed. In our spare bedroom we have a wardrobe/walk in closet area for my wife, with her makeup desk and its large lighted mirror. I get the small closet for my hanging clothing, and a small table for my sewing machine. It’s also where the home wifi, router, and modem come into the house. It’s all utilitarian, and as such we needed more shelves.

I had two sections of shelves to put up, the first being a wifi and router shelf above my wife’s makeup table.

I used my stud finder to find the studs, and actually drilled an extra screw hole in the brackets. They are technically supposed to go into a closet made system, but will hold to the wall studs just fine for what we are doing.

I prefer these double hook hanger style shelf brackets. I have the single ones pictured below in the bathroom and they are not that secure. Sure they won’t fall off the wall, but the shelves wiggle to much. I will replace them with the double style versions once above when I get around to it because life’s too short to be irritated by wiggly shelves. Plus, the double style brackets have holes to screw the shelves to the brackets so you never have to worry about accidentally knocking them down.

The router and wifi will fit up there, and it’s tall enough my wife can’t bonk her head. Few people are taller than her, so I think it will work.

Part of the reason for it’s placement here is to get it away from the electrical panel so there’s less interference, put it closer to the center of the house, for better wifi coverage, and to place it on the other side of the wall from my wife’s desk so she can hard wife into it for YouTube uploads. Her desk is actually set into a closet, and her computer equipment is on the top shelf, so I will be putting a hole through it so we can run cords through for her to hard wire to it.

The second set is above my wife’s dresser. I wanted to center them over the printer, but the studs were not where you’d expect, and it was just more secure to do it this way. I will have to forever live with it not being centered. It won’t bother my wife, but I will probably rework this problem in my head for as long as this is set up this way. Maybe by next year when we repaint, I will think of something.

My wife makes these great 5 x 7 laminated card stock game cards for her tabletop games. She creates them for missions, characters, NPCs, items, and locations. They are amazing and look like professionally made game pieces. We bought an Epson liquid toner printer for it, which as a great bargain as we’ve done hundreds of prints on the original cartridges. This means she needs space to put her supplies.

Once again, this was as easy as using a stud finder to find the wonky stud placement. Interior walls in the little blue house are sometimes not there? Like you’d expect them to be 18 on center, but they skimped. This means, sometimes there are no studs at all in places you’d expect them. Old houses are weird. The external walls are fine, but just the interior ones are like this.

It took me very little time to get the shelves up and secured.

This would probably not be optimal if it was for me, because I am 5’6″. However at my wife’s 6’2″ she can reach the top shelf without a ladder.

I am sure she will organize these when she gets to it. We are thinking baskets or bins, as that works with her ADHD, and my need for organization both.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have a home because I can do this. If we find we don’t like it? I’ll just rip it out, patch it and do something else. Just having that freedom is astounding. I wish everyone could have a home they could do that with.

The funniest part of this entire process is now my shelves are level and straight to a degree the rest of the house isn’t. The little blue house isn’t terrible, but it’s old, and not as level as you’d hope.