Don’t you just love it when you realize there’s more than one use for household items?  Design blogger Liz Fourez from Love Grows Wild graciously shared one of her recent home projects with us and we love it!

She placed these rain gutter bookshelves in her son’s bedroom where her boys can easily see book covers to choose their favorites.  Try switching out books to coordinate with the seasons or themes.

The more we looked at this project the more we realized you could really use these shelves in so many ways depending on the width… they could hold cookbooks or cooking magazines in your kitchen, file folders in your office,  mail and keys by your front door, or maybe a few “coffee table” photo books in your living room.

Where will you install your new space saving shelves?

Thank you Liz!

How to Make your Shelves

Project Supplies:

• K-Snap Vinyl Rain Gutter
• 2 K-Snap Right End Caps
• 2 K-Snap Left End Caps
• 4 K-Snap Gutter Brackets
• Drill
• Screws

How to Make It:

Before heading to the hardware store, measure the space where you’ll mount the bookshelves. FYI – Rain gutters come in 10 foot sections.

1. Cut the gutter to your desired length.
2. Locate the studs in your wall
3. Screw 2 gutter brackets per shelf directly into the studs.
4. If you are making your shelves longer than 5 feet, you may want to add a third bracket to each shelf.
5. The edge of the gutter easily slides onto the tip of the bracket, holding the gutter securely in place.
6. Once the shelves were up, snap an end cap onto both sides of each gutter.

That’s all it takes to install custom bookshelves – now you can display your children’s favorite books, your seasonal cookbooks, files in your office or  maybe even a few “coffee” table books in your den.

Mounting the shelves directly into studs will ensure their strong enough for household use!

To see more tutorial images or for more fun household projects visit Liz on her blog Love Grows Wild and you can read our interview right here in the Blogger Spotlight!