We've been hard at work on the Attic of Shame. My husband and I spent an entire weekend assembling shelves, then we did it again last weekend.
For each shelving unit, I had to go into the attic and clear the space for that unit, so all the heavy things were lifted and moved from the taller side of the room to the short side of the room, a bit at a time. Then, when it was time to put up shelves on the short side of the room, all the heavy things were moved back to the taller side of the room.
Each time I shifted "all the things" and cleared a section of wall, ceiling and floor, I went in with a tube of caulk, and caulked all the places. Since it's just an attic, it's not sealed well, and we were getting some breezes. So far, this attic has taken an entire case of caulk!
Still, it is such an improvement over the moldy dank space it had become when we purchased the house. There had been a leaky adjacent deck, which we ended up enclosing, that had poured water into one of the attic walls. We had our contractor remove all the wet moldy material, dry everything out, and install new drywall during the major part of our renovations.
I spent quite a bit of time looking for cheap pine shelving units for the attic. Particle board is out of the question in a beach environment -- the shelves would begin to sag in no time at all. Plus, I really hate particle board. I originally planned to buy pine shelves from IKEA, but there were none in stock in any IKEA within 200 miles. So, the search for pine shelves began in earnest! I looked at all the stores, and finally found shelves at Fred Meyer (for those of you not from the Pacific Northwest, Fred Meyer is kind of like a Super Target, only bigger).
I did lots of internet and Pinterest searching to see how others had used cheap pine shelving, and just loved this installation, by Emily Henderson.
Of course, that's a light bright space with high ceilings, and my little attic is short and dark, but we work with what we've got, right? I love how Emily painted just the front edge of her shelves in pretty colors. The cool thing about just painting the front edge is not having to move all the things!
These pine shelves have been stained and filled with pillows and fabric samples, from Kufri Life. The natural stain of the wood is a great foil against the colorful textiles! Doesn't it look nice?
My own assembled shelves aren't looking quite so photogenic yet! All in good time....
These shelves were very affordable and come in sixty inch and thirty inch heights, which perfectly matched the knee wall heights under the beams in our attic. The sixty inch high unit comes in a twelve inch depth and a seventeen inch depth, while the thirty inch high unit was only available in the twelve inch depth.
Along the "tall" side of the attic, we have placed four sixty inch high units against the wall, and four thirty inch high units directly in front of them, so they kind of look like hutches. The lower shelving combinations will each fit eight 28-quart storage containers.
We were super disappointed in the quality of the twelve inch deep shelves. While all the shelves are the same Canadian brand, the twelve inch shelves must have been made in a facility with poor quality control. To be clear, none of the units are super amazing quality -- they are cheap pine shelves, after all; but the twelve inch shelves were really, really, really bad, and needed to be re-glued. They were also very warped and twisted, and the wood was split in many places, and there were huge splinters. Since our beach house is over an hour away from the nearest Fred Meyer, and we had already carried them up two flights of stairs, we decided to just work with what we had, and repaired them the best we could.
Since the quality of the twelve inch deep shelves was so bad, we bought seventeen inch deep shelves for the short side of the attic. The sixty inch high shelving units actually come in two thirty inch sections, so we just didn't stack the two sections together.
To see the first part of our Attic of Shame story, click here.
If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to House Revivals, so you won't miss any of the fun projects we have planned! Be sure to like and subscribe to House Revivals on Facebook, so you won't miss out on any of the fun between blog posts!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!
For each shelving unit, I had to go into the attic and clear the space for that unit, so all the heavy things were lifted and moved from the taller side of the room to the short side of the room, a bit at a time. Then, when it was time to put up shelves on the short side of the room, all the heavy things were moved back to the taller side of the room.
Each time I shifted "all the things" and cleared a section of wall, ceiling and floor, I went in with a tube of caulk, and caulked all the places. Since it's just an attic, it's not sealed well, and we were getting some breezes. So far, this attic has taken an entire case of caulk!
Still, it is such an improvement over the moldy dank space it had become when we purchased the house. There had been a leaky adjacent deck, which we ended up enclosing, that had poured water into one of the attic walls. We had our contractor remove all the wet moldy material, dry everything out, and install new drywall during the major part of our renovations.
I spent quite a bit of time looking for cheap pine shelving units for the attic. Particle board is out of the question in a beach environment -- the shelves would begin to sag in no time at all. Plus, I really hate particle board. I originally planned to buy pine shelves from IKEA, but there were none in stock in any IKEA within 200 miles. So, the search for pine shelves began in earnest! I looked at all the stores, and finally found shelves at Fred Meyer (for those of you not from the Pacific Northwest, Fred Meyer is kind of like a Super Target, only bigger).
I did lots of internet and Pinterest searching to see how others had used cheap pine shelving, and just loved this installation, by Emily Henderson.
Of course, that's a light bright space with high ceilings, and my little attic is short and dark, but we work with what we've got, right? I love how Emily painted just the front edge of her shelves in pretty colors. The cool thing about just painting the front edge is not having to move all the things!
These pine shelves have been stained and filled with pillows and fabric samples, from Kufri Life. The natural stain of the wood is a great foil against the colorful textiles! Doesn't it look nice?
My own assembled shelves aren't looking quite so photogenic yet! All in good time....
These shelves were very affordable and come in sixty inch and thirty inch heights, which perfectly matched the knee wall heights under the beams in our attic. The sixty inch high unit comes in a twelve inch depth and a seventeen inch depth, while the thirty inch high unit was only available in the twelve inch depth.
Along the "tall" side of the attic, we have placed four sixty inch high units against the wall, and four thirty inch high units directly in front of them, so they kind of look like hutches. The lower shelving combinations will each fit eight 28-quart storage containers.
We were super disappointed in the quality of the twelve inch deep shelves. While all the shelves are the same Canadian brand, the twelve inch shelves must have been made in a facility with poor quality control. To be clear, none of the units are super amazing quality -- they are cheap pine shelves, after all; but the twelve inch shelves were really, really, really bad, and needed to be re-glued. They were also very warped and twisted, and the wood was split in many places, and there were huge splinters. Since our beach house is over an hour away from the nearest Fred Meyer, and we had already carried them up two flights of stairs, we decided to just work with what we had, and repaired them the best we could.
Since the quality of the twelve inch deep shelves was so bad, we bought seventeen inch deep shelves for the short side of the attic. The sixty inch high shelving units actually come in two thirty inch sections, so we just didn't stack the two sections together.
To see the first part of our Attic of Shame story, click here.
If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to House Revivals, so you won't miss any of the fun projects we have planned! Be sure to like and subscribe to House Revivals on Facebook, so you won't miss out on any of the fun between blog posts!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!
