Shelf Life - Part III: The Installation

Welcome back to the final installment of my kitchen shelf series! It's so nice to see you again!

Aren't you amazed that I can drag out a simple project like this over three posts?

Me too ... then again, I have a bunch of scapegoats I get to blame. There's work, laundry, picking up, feeding the zoo (we have a family cat and a porch cat and guinea pigs), gardening, laundry, mopping floors, fixing a minimum of 2 meals a day (home-cooked, no less), supervising homework, laundry, volunteer work, a new book I picked up at the library and much more.

Anyways, back to the shelves. The last time we saw them they were in pieces: brackets and shelf boards were painted white and ready for their installation. First I attached the brackets to the shelf boards.

[A shelf in the making: attaching the brackets]

After that I whipped out the trusted spray paint and gave the shelves and brackets another coat of white paint. The spray paint worked much better at getting into all the curly curvy corners of the brackets - much much better than a brush!

Then it was off into the kitchen for the installation!


[Before: Empty space between the corner cabinet and the window]

I used a simple wooden measuring stick from the blue box store as my template. I turned the shelves over and marked the spot for the hardware on the measuring stick, then held it against the wall and leveled it.

[All level!]

Once the measuring stick was level, I copied the marks for the hardware. Two drilled holes and a few minutes later, things started to look promising!

[Shelf No. 1 is up!]

This time, my measuring fu was running strong. While I'm usually off by some amount, I hit the nail right on the head this time. The lower shelf ended up nicely even with the bottom of the wall cabinet. Strrrrike!

Rinse and repeat - Shelf No. 2 went up just as quickly and without any problems.

[After: Project "Open Shelves" completed!]

I added a few things to pull the turquoise from the adjacent dining room into the kitchen and voila - all done! Now I have the perfect spot to show off my beautiful "Oresund" mugs from Anthropology.

[Prettiest cups ever!]

So what's next? The window, of course!