We had a big "honey do" weekend at our house. The kind every husband cringes over when he thinks of it. The one where your wife asks (forces) you to mark off some of the things on the household "to do" list that have been piling up for a while. For me, one of these things was the need for shelving in Parrish's room.
I had been eyeing all of the creative plumbing pipe shelving on Pinterest and hatched a plan to use two old cedar shelves from our last house to create something similar for Parrish. Because every little boy needs a place to display trophies, pictures, books, and art work, right? Right.
The plumbing pipe comes in several different length and widths. We used the 12" straight pipes fastened to the elbow and t joints and then secured to the wall with the plumbing flange discs.
When you really start studying these parts at Lowes or Home Depot you will not believe all the different configurations you can dream up in your head. The man helping me said he assisted another girl the same week who was putting plumbing pipe together to make a rolling cart/clothes rack. Who knew?!
If you don't already have shelves, you can easily cut down your own out of new or old wood. Just make sure at least one side of the shelving unit is mounted into a stud.
These pictures don't show it, but in the end we decided Parrish needed a place to display his sports medals and various athletic necklaces, etc so we screwed 3 large hooks into the bottom of the shelving unit and hung them there. It turned out so cute and he LOVES it! Having a place to put all the "clutter" really freed up the table top space in the rest of his room and allowed me to rearrange the furniture a bit to get maximum use out of his space. None of us can believe how much bigger it feels! Pottery barn has a dry erase map wall mural on sale that I have promised him we will hang at some point. (I don't think Daddy is up for more "to do lists" anytime soon!)
Next on the list of to-do's was a surveyor's stick turned height chart. I was shopping for a client the other day at an antique store and happened across this beauty leaning in a dark corner. The minute I saw it I thought what a precious and interesting height chart it would make for the boys.
In our old home we measured the kid's heights on a post in the basement, which seemed like a great idea until it was time to move and we couldn't stand the thought of leaving those markings behind. So of course we did what any rational people would do....we grabbed a crow bar and pried one side of the post off and took it with us! Ha! (Don't worry...we replaced it for the new owners...we're not THAT crazy).
So Saturday I lined up my precious board and started transferring measurements to the side of the surveyor's stick. Parrish wanted his marked with blue sharpie and chose green sharpie for Knox. Above each line I put their ages in years/months.
For the time being it is laying up against the door frame in the mud room where it will one day be mounted. If I could just get around to buying a 1/2" l bracket to secure it. I think it is a charming piece to look at and on the off chance we move again we won't have to grab the crow bar! Bonus!
Hope you like these ideas but now I must run because a certain little guy is waking up and will be waiting for me in his crib...and I can't wait to get my hands on him! :)
